Breastfeeding?  Don’t Forget to Make Time for Yourself

by

Barbara L. Behrmann, Ph.D.

© 2005

 God, she's beautiful.  I lie on the futon nursing my daughter and listen to her breathing become deeper, more rhythmic.  I am smitten.  Carefully, I guide my finger between her tiny hand and my breast and slide my nipple out of her mouth.  Eyes shut, she searches for the lost nipple like a baby robin, eager for its mother to feed him.  In a moment she will cry with frustration and wake herself up.  I let her mouth return to my breast.  She is home.

I gaze at her puckering cheek and possessive embrace of my breast.  Her breathing is again deep, her body relaxed.  I wait and once more try to reclaim my nipple.  Fat chance!  Her head follows her mouth toward my receding breast.  Clamp!  She is back on.  Her eyes never opened.

She clings to the breast she believes is hers.  I’m getting bored.  My neck is stiff.  I can’t be her pacifier all morning!  She sighs and sucks with more determination.  This is not the breathing pattern of a baby in deep sleep.  I roll my eyes.  She sucks.

I’ve given birth to a leech!  I resolve myself to a no-nap/no-work morning and try one last time to separate mouth from breast.  She stirs, but her mouth stays shut!  Yes!  A free woman at last! 

I slide my body away and tiptoe hurriedly across the room, eager for a chance to get to my computer.  My hand is on the door knob and I turn around.  My daughter is on her back now, sucking an imaginary breast.  I stand there for several minutes staring at her.  I am smitten.  God, she’s beautiful!

My daughter was probably a year old when I wrote this piece, and I clearly remember the battle of my emotions:  the overwhelming love I felt for her, the fusion I often felt between her body and mine; and the burning desire to have just a single hour to myself, to feel the satisfaction of having something “tangible” to show for my time.   

This passion for our children and our simultaneous desire to be unencumbered from, yet super-glued to one’s child, are central themes of mothering, constantly evolving and fluctuating.  Perhaps at no time is this more dramatic than when our children are infants and toddlers.   Quite simply, little in life can rock your world quite like having a baby.

Redefining Normal

In The Mask of Motherhood:  How Becoming a Mother Changes Everything and Why We Pretend it Doesn’t, author Susan Maushart writes that the transition to motherhood is increasingly associated with a major identity crisis, a “mismatch between expectation and experience, between what we ought to be feeling and how we do feel, between how we ought to be managing and how we do manage…”  A friend of mine refers to this as “the oh-my-god-what-have-I-done factor.”  Even if you eagerly awaited motherhood, little can prepare you for the dramatic upheaval in life as you once knew it.

After my first daughter was born, for example, I kept waiting for life to return to “normal.”  It took me a full year to realize that it never would; instead I had to redefine what normal meant.  By the time my second daughter was born, I had learned my lesson.  I didn’t waste energy, eagerly awaiting some mythical day.  I simply knew from the onset that once again, we had arrived at a new construction of normalcy.

For many mothers this new “normal” is filled with frustration and ambivalence.   I loved my babies passionately.  I was – and remain – an affectionate, attentive mom.  But I greeted my husband at the end of a long care-taking day with outstretched arms – not for a hug, but for him to take the baby off my hands.  On particularly bad days, I would meet him at the door, eyes narrowed.  “Where were you?” I’d demand to know.  “You said you’d be home by 6:00 and it’s now 6:07!”    I sometimes look back at this period and marvel at the fact that we’re still happily married! 

While all mothers may experience this kind of ambivalence, it may be especially so for women committed to nursing.  That’s because of the unique embodied relationship between a nursing mother and child.  On the one hand, a mother and baby have a physical, almost spiritual connection:  your baby cries, your milk lets down; your baby suckles, your uterus contracts. The boundaries are almost non-existent.  On the other hand, a mother and child have separate and often competing needs. Your baby’s need for connection and fusion contrasts sharply with your need for autonomy and self-definition.

Julie, for example, a mother in New Jersey, relishes the “incredible connection” she has with her son, but explains that “sometimes that connection, the physical contact, is too much.  Nursing is constantly giving, all the time,” she adds.  “Sometimes it’s wonderful but I don’t think I realized how intense some days would be.  And those are usually the days that he needs it more.”

It’s Not Always Easy

Nobody ever said parenting was going to be easy.  And breastfeeding, though deeply rewarding, isn’t always a walk in the park.  But as hard as it can be to give yourself over to the needs of one’s child, that doesn’t necessarily mean you want to abandon nursing for formula.  Doula and psychologist Lauren Korfine points out the lack of safe spaces where nursing mothers can give voice to the darker side of nursing without validating those who tout formula as women’s best friend. “In this culture,” she says, “whenever something is hard the answer is immediately, ‘Then don’t do it.’  It’s hard to be in labor, so take the labor away. It’s hard to have a fever, so take the fever away. It’s hard to mother your child in a conscious, attached way, but people are afraid to say that because the reaction from others would be, ‘So put the kid in a crib or give the kid a bottle.’” 

One of the ways to manage this kind of conflict is to find kindred spirits.  That’s what Julie did.  She is part of a group of mothers who breastfeed and parent the way she does.  They understand that when she groans, “I can’t take it anymore!” or complains of feeling “touched out”, she’s not saying she regrets her decision or wants to wean.

“A lot of more mainstream mothers just look at me and say, “Wow!  You’re still doing that?  When are you going to wean?”  Julie says.  “But I couldn’t imagine weaning my son now.  I can’t imagine being able to comfort him so quickly without nursing.  If he falls down or gets upset nursing is the quickest way to connect with him and say, “It’s ok.”  If he gets overwhelmed in new situations there’s the quick fix of “checking-in” nursing.  If he’s hungry when we’re out at the mall, I can nurse him.  It’s a piece of cake.” 

Taking Care of Yourself

There are few things in life we enjoy 100 percent, all of the time.  You can be fully committed to nursing and not enjoy every second of the experience.  But it’s not healthy for you, or your family, if you become a martyr. As important as it is to respond to your baby with sensitivity and compassion, it’s also important not to neglect your own needs to a consistent and sometimes dangerous degree.  Even without suffering from post-partum depression, you can still find yourself feeling irritable and cranky.   It’s important to remember to take care of yourself, too.  As the old saying goes, “When Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”  Here are a few suggestions to help you regain your emotional footing, to remember that you are more than somebody’s 24 hour snack bar.

● Create some space.  See if someone can watch your baby for an hour or two, maybe a friend, neighbor, or high school or college student.  If you have a partner, maybe try to arrange a regularly scheduled bit of time for yourself.  When you’re parenting 24/7, even going to the grocery store can be a blessed event, if you can do it alone.

● Move your body.  Go for a walk.  Exercise.  I’m a pretty sedentary kind of person at heart, but even I have realized how much better I feel after doing something physical.  And if you don’t have someone to give you a short break, exercise and movement is something you can often do with baby in tow.

● Pick up the phone.  Talk to a friend.  Call your mom.  Meet someone for coffee.  Find a mom’s group.  Women weren’t meant to parent in isolation. 

● Finally, if worse comes to worse, simply put the baby in a safe space and give yourself a few minutes to breath.  Children aren’t the only ones who sometimes need a “time-out.”

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Barbara L. Behrmann, Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, and author of The Breastfeeding Café: Mothers Share the Joys, Secrets & Challenges of Nursing, University of Michigan Press, 2005. She is a frequent speaker around the country and is available for talks, readings, and conducting birthing and breastfeeding writing circles. The mother of two formerly breastfed children, Barbara lives in upstate New York.