Breastfeeding my three-year-old is an act of resistance
My daughter?s birth was traumatic. There was a terrifying period of 15 minutes when her body was completely stuck in my birth canal, until she was forcefully pulled from my womb by two surgeons through C-section.
But when she nursed for the first time, as she lay naked on my chest, skin-to-skin, the trauma dissolved and was replaced with this euphoric love. It was the bond that I knew needed to continue for as long as we both could manage.
My daughter is three now and she will often cuddle into my lap after her bath, or early in the morning, and she?ll lift up my shirt to nurse. She?ll even say ?other side? when she is ready to switch sides. This is something that I have learned to accept, because I know it?s the comfort she needs. I do my best to support her journey, while also setting the boundaries needed to maintain a healthy nursing relationship with her. Colonial systems and colonial ways of thinking often call this ?extended? breastfeeding. But Indigenous kinship systems simply call it what it is?breastfeeding. The ?extended breastfeeding? label implies judgment or criticism, like you?re doing something that is beyond the norm.
Prior to colonization, in some nations, communities, and families, the breast-feeding process?and eventual weaning?was strictly child-led. We believed that children knew when they no longer needed that form of attachment, comfort, and security.
?I nursed until I was six or seven, because I can remember it!? Some kokums (grandmothers) laugh abo...
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27-04-2024 08:05 - (
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