OK…you DON’T have to bite me…
I breast fed my kids. All three of them. I had sore, cracked open, bloody nipples for months. I experienced teeth curling pain at every bad latch-on. I fed my children bloody milk from a HORRENDOUS mastitis that refused to go away after batches of antibiotics. I dealt with my babies who wanted to eat every hour on the hour for AT LEAST an hour. I had stretch marks…still have them…from having HUMUNGOUS, milk infested boobies. I donned breast milk stained and splattered bras and shirts because those maxi pads that you stick in the nursing bras were suckage back then. I slept in puddles of leakage. I lactated on date nights with hubby because some asshole brought their crying, screaming child into a movie or restaurant. I used my boobs as squirt guns at my husband…oh wait, that was probably TMI. And I’m STILL dealing with saggy boobs that drag along the floor, from all the little mouths those monsters fed.
I didn’t do it for the bonding. I bonded when they were in my tummy. I bonded with my kids just from holding and cuddling and munching on their tushies. I bonded with every poopy diaper I changed. I bonded with my babies, every stinking time I looked at them.
I didn’t breast feed because of the promise of DROPPING the pregnancy weight. Because THAT was not true either. Well, for me it wasn’t. I’m sure it had NOTHING to do with my “healthy” (read amounts not quality. wha?) eating habits…
I breast fed for 3 months, 4 months and 7 months. All in the name of making my childrens immunity bigger, better and stronger than say…non-breast fed children.
You know what I have to say about this?
BULLSHIT.
That’s right. There…I said it. And I’ll say it again…
BULLSHIT.
Because let me tell you something…
My 3 breastfed children…are ALWAYS sick.
2 of the 3 of my breastfed children…had their tonsils and adenoids removed. The 3rd one, he probably could use a good tonsil/adenoidectomy. But I’m not having it done. I don’t think I could live through my oldest son having this procedure. It would put me over the edge. Because…he’s the biggest baby with just a little sore throat. A bad sore throat…I shudder at the thought. They, all three, have shit for allergies. Chronic sniffles. Chronic sore throats. Chronic complainers…although, I’m not sure how much that has to do with breastfeeding…
Now…
My step-children. The oldest was breast fed for a millisecond. The other one…never. They both were subjected to secondhand marijuana smoke. And god knows what else they experienced first OR second hand…in the throes of their egg donor. I don’t even know if she remembered to feed them or if they just screamed until their Daddy got home, then he would bottle feed them.
And those kids are sick RARELY…if EVER. Seriously.
Now explain that.
Why am I babbling about this right now…years after the fact.
Because.
My oldest son. Is sick…again. My little one…has a constant running, gloppy nose. And my daughter…likes to complain a lot. (Although, yesterday…my step-daughter was home sick. But that was her once a year sickness that could be allergies.)
So whoever said that breast is best. They misled.
Breast is better than, say, a bottle of whiskey. Or cough syrup. Or…marijuana smoke.
Breast is better than, say, shaking your screaming baby.
Breast is better than, say, starving your baby.
Breast is NOT best for keeping your children from missing copious amounts of pre-school on.
Breast is best for having these sick kids home, AT LEAST once a week, throwing off your alone time schedule of blogging, twitter…and maybe getting a few hours of PAID work at the office.
Or maybe it was just MY breast…
WHATEVER…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking my breasts and my 13 y/o son, who was breast fed for the first 3 months of his life, and we are going to the doctor. AGAIN.
update: the doctor confirmed that he has influenza…of the NON-oinker kind. A nurse and I had to hold him down while the other nurse drew blood from a fricking finger prick. He is gonna make it…despite being breast fed!
Now go and enter the Ziggy Marley Family Time CD and iPod Shuffle Giveaway
damn sick kids SUCK…they SUCK BREASTFED BOOBIES….
OH. sorry.
Hope your son is better!
I LOVE breastfeeding but I suppliment with formula if I’ve been nursing for a goddamned hour and she’s still hungry. My sister formula-fed her daughter and she’s a TANK – she could jump off of a bridge and once she realized that crying for attention is fruitless she’d stand up and walk away. Anyway, if I was struggling with it the way you did I would have stopped MUCH sooner than you did! I will admit that the pressure to breastfeed is strong. Sometimes I just want to make her a bottle but I feel like I HAVE TO DO IT or someone I don’t even know will think I’m a bad mom. Screw that shit.
I gave my kids breast milk and formula for the first three months each…I had to pump, but that’s another story..then just formula, and they were/are rarely sick. My sis-in-law and sister both breast fed their kids for more than a year each, and they are always sick. Does one thing have something to do with the other? Who knows, you may be on to something.
I could have told you that hee hee! I tried to breastfeed my daughter when she was first born 20 years ago and damn near killed her by suffocation. That was the first and last attempt to breastfeed any of my kids. You know what builds their immune system? Having them around a bunch of other snotty-nosed, cold carrying, non-covering coughers in daycare. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Seriously. My two kids who went to daycare? Hardly ever get sick. The last one, who never stepped foot in a daycare or had been subjected to a group setting before kindergarten this year? Been sick all year and missed about 25 days of kindergarten so far this year.
Go figure. Hope your 13y/o gets better soon.
Here, here! I breastfed both my kids & the result? ALWAYS SICK!!!! I call bullshit too. That too is the only reason I breastfed, “I want healthy babies so who cares if it is painful & uncomfortable? It doesn’t matter if I have to leave the room when company is here because one day I’ll have lots of company to talk to because my kids will be healthy little horses…..” Ummmm….no didn’t happen. I feel cheated too.
My kid was never sick. For the first 6 months of her life. Then she got her first cold, then ear infection, then the other ear, then yeast infections from side effects from the antibiotics and then she’d be fine for like, 2 weeks, then sick again. You know when it stopped? When we discovered her food allergies. Seriously, cutting out dairy and wheat has meant that in the last six months, she’s had 2 two-days-max colds. Which seems like NEVER, here.
(ps. I breastfed full time for 6 months, then half breast, half formula til solids took over around 9 months. She quit, finally, herself just after her first birthday.)
Isn’t that the truth? What a bitter irony? When I think of all the cracked nipples, man, and still I have to stay up all night from the constant coughs and colds? Well, at least I can guilt them later on in life.
Mel..i cannot wait to hug you.. this post made me laugh out loud.. I breast fed Donnie for 18 months.. 18!!!!!!!!!! and ask me how many times he has been sick? Like 1 billion two million seven hundred thousand..oh you get the idea..He was ALWAYS sick..
and now.. my boobs are like -a pancakes.. sigh.
Holla! I BF for six months and it was HELL!
Like your post about breast. It has been proven over the years that Mother’s natural milk is best for babies, and it does protect their inmune system. I am sorry that your children are sick. It could be something else that is making them sick. And you have to take care of your own health, otherwise you cannot give them healthy breast milk. So check your own health and see why they are getting sick. Because that is the reason God gave women like all other female mammals Breast to feed their young, and it is the best for young newborns, and up to several months after birth.
I am with you. Breastfed first and current for more than 8 months, I am exhausted…
LOL. non oiker kind….. But sorry he is sick.
L.M.A.O. and RIGHT ON! My youngest is almost 11 and I am STILL bitter about the breastfeeding zealot thing.
http://motherwhatnowredux.blogspot.com/2008/04/bottle-whisperer-todays-washington-post.html