Human Milk for Human Kids: Breastfeeding Toddlers, NFP, Natural Child Spacing and the Return of Fertility

I posted before about how ecological breastfeeding has helped space my babies...without the need for any Natural Family Planning stuff like charts and abstinence.   As practicing Catholics, of course we don't use artificial contraception at all, but we also haven't really used NFP all that much.  NFP can be wonderful of course, but to be quite honest, I do hear an awful lot of people complain about how hard it is and how much they hate charting and observing signs and how they struggle with abstinence and how difficult it is and all that. 

And see, the thing is, I don't think it's "supposed" to be that way.  I don't think married couples are supposed to be struggling through months of abstinence and sweating over charts and analyzing mucous.  Not that there is anything wrong with that...but it IS hard. 

And the thing is, ecological breastfeeding DOES work in delaying the return of fertility...and can easily space children 2-3 years apart....all without the use of any charts or abstinence or toilet paper to observe your signs. 

Yes, it does take sacrifice...co-sleeping and night nursing is pretty much part and parcel.  But, then again, if you really are wanting to avoid pregnancy...charting and abstinence isn't exactly a walk in the park either, so  basically...pick your sacrifice. 

With each of my 4 children, my cycles returned at 12 months, 14 months, 17 months and 15 months postpartum.  Notice that I said that is when my cycles returned.  It's not when full fertility returned.   

Let's have a little biology lesson..shall we? Feel free to skip if you don't like biology. 

Breastfeeding suppresses fertility in two ways.  If the hormone, prolactin, is circulating in high enough levels in the blood, ovulation does not occur.  This is when a postpartum woman is not having cycles at all.   What keeps circulating levels of prolactin high? Frequent breastfeeding.  Prolactin is released every time breastfeeding occurs.  The more times a mother breastfeeds per day, the more prolactin she produces.  

As her baby gets older and starts to breastfeed less and eat more food, prolactin levels start to drop and the women ovulates. The period between ovulation and menstruation is called the luteal phase.  This needs to be at least 10 days for pregnancy to occur.   Sometimes there is not enough prolactin to suppress ovulation, but there is enough to shorten the luteal phase, still preventing pregnancy.   This is what happens to me after my cycles return.....I still have several months of cycles with a short luteal phase... basically rendering me infertile for 1-2 years after each birth. That translates to a spacing of 2 or 3 years, all without doing any charting or abstinence or toilet paper sign checking.

Of course, this also involves breastfeeding into the 2nd and even 3rd year of life.  My older three all weaned somewhere between 3 and 3 1/2 years of age.  GASP!!   So, no...I've never nursed up until kindergarten.   Yet, I do nurse one and two and even three year olds.  Why??  Well, because toddlers need milk.  Everyone knows that.  It just makes sense to me, that since they are humans, human milk might be good.  It's free anyway, and I'm all about saving money.  Plus, it comes in attractive containers (wink) and never spoils in dirty sippy cups left in the car.  It's just easy.  Of course, my one and two year olds also eat other foods ....all kinds of foods...even dairy foods like cheese and yogurt, and by age 3 they are pretty much only nurse 1-2 times a day and by 3 1/2 they are done.   Yet at age one, they are still nursing several times a day because one-year olds need a lot of milk in a way that three year olds don't.  That doesn't mean I don't ever leave them for a few hours at a time, it just means that generally they still nurse fairly frequently at age one.

My current one-year old is a more than eager participant in the Bentrup family tradition of ice cream every Sunday.  She drinks water from a cup and eats food from bowls and plates, but for the most part, her milk comes nice and warm, straight from the tap, just the way she likes it.   And, that's okay...because really she still is JUST a baby, and at age one, she does still NEED to drink a lot of milk.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against giving toddlers cow's milk or almond milk or whatever, it's just that I don't see how cow's milk could possibly be better for her than human milk.   She may try to eat grass, but she's still not a cow.   I don't have anything against cow's milk.  We eat more than our share of things like yogurt and cheese (and ice cream!).  But, for toddlers who are still basically just babies...continuing to feed human milk (at an age when they still need a lot of milk) just seems to make a lot of sense.  So I do.  Plus, she still finds nursing comforting and it puts her right to sleep and calms her down when she bumps her head or gets mad because we don't let her scribble on the walls.

I realize that ecological breastfeeding doesn't "work" for everyone.  Some people will have their fertility return early anyway,  But, I'm convinced it can work for a lot of people.  How do we do it?  Pretty simple...I just continue to nurse, frequently, both day and night.  I put babies and toddlers to sleep by nursing (most of the time).   And, I continue to nurse, even when they are eating lots of other foods, because well...they still need milk, so why not human milk? As they get even older and are no long toddlers, they stop needing so much milk and they just gradually wean.  Some of my older kids do drink cow's milk and some don't...but none of them NEED milk the way a toddler does.

{Disclaimer: Obviously not everyone can breastfeed toddlers (or even babies), and some babies/toddlers wean themselves early, and there could be a whole bunch of reasons why what *I* do, doesn't *work* for other people.  And, that's okay. I'm just sharing what *I* do and what works for me.  If it doesn't work for you, that's okay.}

7 Things I Don't Buy and 1 Thing I Do (7QTF).

Once upon a time we had fewer kids and more money.   It's a long, sad story, our move from lower middle class to upper middle class to total poverty (law school) and then back up to lower middle class.   And, I'll tell ya something...it's actually hardest in the middle.  One good thing though, is that over the years and through all that movement, I've learned a thing or two about frugality. 

The easiest way to be frugal is to just not buy stuff.  Seriously...just don't buy it.  It's easier to just not buy stuff than it is to coupon or shop sales or go bargain hunting.   Most of the time, you don't even miss it, and it's easy enough to find a way to do without. Plus, stuff annoys me.  It clutters up my house and takes up space. 

So here are 7 things I don't buy and 1 thing I do.   And, since there are 7 of them, I'll just link up with Jen from Conversion Diary for 7QTF.

1.  Baby food  

I just feed my babies little bits and bites of whatever we are eating and it's all good.  They learn to like lots of different textures and learn to handle "chunks" of food a bit earlier, which I like to think makes them at a lower risk of choking because they become more adept at handling food in their mouth at an earlier age.  I like to think that anyway.  And, it saves a ton of money, because those little bits of food are basically negligible when it comes to increasing our grocery bill.

2.

Paper Towels

We just use cloth towels for cleaning....throw then in the wash when dirty and then re-use.  Works just as well as paper towels and savers a ton of money....especially for me.  Because I know myself....I am a paper towel waster....the type of person to use 4 paper towels when one would do. It's easier to just not use them at all.  I'm also a toilet paper waster, but don't worry,  I'm  NOT going to give up toilet paper. 

3.

Body Skin Stuff

We don't use any skin lotions or moisturizers or anything like that.  My personal theory is that they are all make your skin drier, hence requiring more moisturizer or lotion...it's a conspiracy I tell ya.  Plus, they are horrible for you and contain all sorts of carcinogens and other bad stuff.  The same goes for chapstick.   Chapstick actually makes your lips drier.  Plus, I'm a bit of a hippie, so I tend to shy away from that stuff anyway...although I do use shampoo and deodorant (although I make my own) and I swear, I also shave...so I'm not totally completely out there, I promise. 

4.

Baby Wipes

I just use small washcloths with water and it works just as well as actual baby wipes, with a lot less expense. and no nasty chemicals. I just throw them in the wash with the cloth diapers and it's all good.  Plus, I'm a baby wipe waster, so it's easier for me to just not buy them.  

5.

Processed/Convenience Food Anything

This is as much for health reasons as it is for frugality.  We don't eat hardly any processed food.  It's just as easy to make our own BBQ or Honey Mustard sauce or Taco Seasoning or Spice Rub or whatever else.   And with a little bit of practice and advance planning it's really not all that hard to make our own snacks and pizza and macaroni and cheese and whatever. The only exceptions are I do buy bread (I find that making my own doesn't actually save money and takes too much time, even accounting for buying the more expensive, healthier brands of bread) and gluten-free pasta and the occasional splurge of gluten-free crackers (because I've just never been able to master making crackers).

6.

Kid's Clothes

Okay, I wouldn't say that I NEVER buy kid's clothes, but it's very, very, very rare for me.   Through a combination of saving clothes to pass down and very generous friends who've given us hand me downs, I've very rarely needed to buy kid's clothes....and almost never for Greta or John or Elsa.  I have had to buy more stuff for Heidi...mostly because she was the oldest and because she was always really big for her age and grew at a super fast rate, so she outgrew clothes much quicker than the other kids do.  For the younger three though...I've very rarely had to buy anything...only really shoes and underwear.   If you don't have friend's willing to pass down clothes...make some.  Seriously...get the word out there that you're looking for kid's clothes and I bet you'll soon be inundated with way more than you can use.   

7. 

Feminine Hygiene Products. 

Okay, I'm sure this is too much information...and any guys reading this,...just stop reading now.  Just stop...you've been warned..   Several years ago, I got into "mama cloth" which is basically cloth pads.  I find them to be way more comfortable, and I *think* they may actually help reduce flow heaviness and cramps.  Can't swear by it, but since I've started using them...I almost never get cramps and have lighter flow...when I actually need them that is. Ecological breastfeeding greatly reduces the amount of the time I actually need any sort of product at all. 

The One Thing I Do Buy:  Disposable diapers because I value my sleep.  Now, we do use cloth diapers most of the time, but I use one disposable diaper a day...or should I say night.  The cloth just can't hold an entire night's worth of pee from a nursing all night baby, but the sposies can.  And, I refuse to get up in the middle of the night and change diapers, so sposies it is, at least overnight until babe gets night-weaned.

And, those are my 7 things I don't buy.  What are some things YOU don't buy ?

WIWS and I Co-Sleep and I'm Not Sleep-Deprived.

Kendra over at Catholic All Year has a blog post about baby sleep and what she does to get her babies to sleep. It's a very interesting post (as all of Kendra's posts are), and the comments are even more interesting. While Kendra was very much do whatever works for you, every family is different, many of the commentators seemed to say that babies needed to be trained to sleep and before employing CIO (cry-it-out), everyone was sleep-deprived and miserable and afterwards, everyone was happy and well rested.  And, I'm sure that is true for them.  But, it's not true for me. 

I've gotten to a point in my parenting where I can respect that different things work for different families.  I'm not judging those who do CIO.  I totally respect that most parents really are parenting the best they can and everyone does things differently.  I realize that co-sleeping isn't for everyone..that it doesn't work for some families.  And, that's okay.  Those families need to do what works for them. 

However I did want to address the idea that babies need to be taught to sleep alone for healthy sleep habits and that co-sleeping leads to unhealthy sleep habits and sleep-deprived mothers and babies.  

With all my babies, we've co-slept from day one.  They've always nursed to fall asleep unless they fell asleep in the stroller, the sling or the car. 

Co-sleeping and night-nursing is easy for me.  It doesn't disturb my sleep and I sleep just fine with a baby in bed with me, and even nursing in the middle of the night does not disturb me because I don't have to get up. I barely even have to roll over.

By 1 week, my babies have all had their days/night straight and would (98% of the time) sleep all night, with only waking up to nurse...but no fussy/awake periods during the night.  So, I never actually got up at night (except to change a poopy diaper and that all stopped by 3-4 weeks of age or so).

By 3-6 months, they would reliably give a solid 2 hour stretch of sleeping alone, in the beginning of the night and I could easily nurse them to sleep and then lay them down and they'd be good for about 2 hours while I did my own thing.

By 6-10 months, I could nurse them to sleep and easily lay them down for naps and they would nap alone (for some reason napping was harder to get them to do alone).

Here's proof..  Baby napping alone!  7 months ago this would have been rare...now it's a daily occurrence.  And, now you can also see what Elsa wore Sunday. 

By a year, they were down to nursing only once or twice in the middle of the night. Since we're still co-sleeping, this nursing is not disruptive to me in the least.  I simply latch them on and go right back to sleep. 

Sometime around age 2-2 1/2 I night-weaned them completely, although they would continue to nurse to fall asleep but not nurse at all during the night.  Depending on the child, this was easier or harder, but with all the kids, it was fairly painless.  

One thing I learned from night-weaning, is that even at age 2, some of my kids were legitimately thirsty in the middle of the night and that is why they wanted to nurse.  Once I started keeping a sippy- cup of water in the bedroom to offer instead of nursing, night-weaning went fairly smoothly.   Heck, sometimes, I still wake up thirsty and need a drink of water to go back to sleep.

Sometime around age 2.5-3.5 they stopped nursing to sleep.  They just did this all on their own.  I didn't have to teach them or anything, they just naturally started pulling off from nursing before being completely asleep and then falling asleep on their own.    I know some people will think aaaack, you were still nursing your 2-year or 3-year old to sleep, but really nursing them to sleep is EASIER than reading stories or singing songs or doing whatever bedtime routine other people do with their kids.   It only takes about 10 minutes at that age, and is a more sure-fire way of getting them to sleep than stories and singing or whatnot.   And they all naturally gave it up...on their own. And, none of them got cavities from it either.

 And, if I wasn't home to put them to sleep, they fell asleep just fine with Daddy, so it wasn't like I had to be there all the time.  It's just that most of the time I was, so it was easy enough to nurse to sleep.  

Also, around age 3, they all moved to their own bed in another room. 

And, between 3 or 3 1/2, they all weaned totally and completely..and have slept on their own, in their own bed, ever since.  They all have healthy sleep habits, fall asleep easily and for the most part sleep all night. We don't have elaborate bedtime routines...or kids stalling bedtime or kids getting out of bed repeatably.  From age 3-4, some of them would come into my bed in the middle of the night a few times a week, and I was fine with that.  By age 4, they pretty much all stopped doing that and stayed in their own bed all night. 

There has been a natural progression of increasingly independent sleep that happened all by itself without sleep training. 

For babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow

So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.  

That line from that classic poem is so true.  Babies grow up.  They all grow up.  They all wean. They all learn to fall asleep on their own. They stop needing to be rocked (or nursed).  They become easier to put down asleep as their sleep pattern shifts from a newborn pattern to an adult pattern.*  They all start sleeping through the night. Some earlier than others..but it DOES happen.   Sometimes it feels like society is pushing babies and toddlers more and more towards independence earlier and earlier.  We just joined a new coop and Elsa is in the nursery. I'm only assigned to be in the nursery with her the last class...the first class I have "off" to socialize in the parent's lounge and the 2nd class I'm expected to help out in another class.  Last week was our first day there, and not surprisingly at all, Elsa protested rather strongly if I tried to leave her alone in the nursery with total and complete strangers.  She was terrified.  So, I didn't leave her.  She's just a baby.  I put her on my back in the Beco and took her with me to help out in the class I was assigned to help out.  And, she was fine..she fell asleep back there.  And, I was fine with her on my back.  The other mothers in the nursery were oh, it's like a band-aid...you rip it off and it hurts and they cry, but then they get used to it and they stop crying. And, maybe that's true..but I wasn't going to leave her in there crying and alone with unfamiliar people. She's just a baby.  I don't judge others who do that..but I'm not going to.  Just because she can't be left at 12-months with total strangers doesn't mean she won't happily go into a preschool class at age 3 or a kindergarten class at age 5.   They all grow up. I don't need to force separation at age 1, to make it possible at age 3 or age 4.

Likewise I don't need to force a baby to sleep alone at 6 months, to ensure that they're sleeping alone when they're three or that they have healthy sleep habits.  It just happens..they just naturally grow up and become less needy and more independent.

I can honestly say that I've never felt sleep-deprived from my babies nursing in the middle of the night.  The only times I have felt sleep deprived are when I stayed up too late, or  I was up with someone who was sick or injured.   But, never just from my babies waking up to nurse.  I honestly can't relate to moms talking about those sleep-deprived first few months, because I'm wasn't sleep-deprived.  I sleep, baby sleeps, we all sleep together and it works for us.

And, my babies have never seemed sleep-deprived or been cranky from nursing at night or nursing to sleep.  The only time they've been cranky and sleep deprived is when they haven't napped enough.  And, that's not the fault of co-sleeping or nursing to sleep...that's the fault of us having places to go and people to see and things to do and simply not being home during nap, so they had cat naps in the car, or fell asleep in the sling at the grocery store or were pulled out of bed and thrown into the car to rush off to piano lessons.

On the flip side though, the advantage of nursing to sleep is that my babies are very adaptable and will nap anywhere.  So, a 1-year old who sleeps all through Mass...SWEET!

The other advantage is that co-sleeping and night-nursing delays the onset of the return of fertility...and provides a form of "natural child spacing".   My children are all spaced fairly far apart, and this form of co-sleeping/breastfeeding is a large reason why. Now, some people may not care about that, or may want closely spaced children (and that's great). But for those who do, or who are unsure about NFP...ecological breastfeeding/co-sleeping/continued nursing at night can work and provide a natural form of child-spacing.  Of course there are exceptions..there are always exceptions...but it totally does work for me. 

And, I as I said earlier...I respect the fact that everyone parents differently and that every family does what works from them.   I really believe that.  Co-sleeping doesn't work for everyone.  My purpose in writing this post is to show that babies and toddlers can naturally learn healthy sleep habits and independent sleep in their own time without being "trained" into it.  You don't HAVE to teach a baby how to sleep alone or how to fall asleep alone.  They WILL figure it out...eventually..in their own time.

*Dr. Sears talks about this.  When babies are first born, they fall asleep asleep differently than adults.  They go from awake to light/REM sleep and then into deep sleep, which is why it's so hard to put a newborn baby down when they first fall asleep.  They don't fall straight into deep sleep the way an older baby or an adult does. As they get older, this gradually shifts and they start to fall asleep and enter deep sleep earlier and faster (similar to the way an older child falls asleep and at that point, they become much easier to lay down if they fall asleep nursing or being rocked).   I can always tell when Elsa is ready to be put down because her head rolls back in my arms...the rolling head is a sure sign of deep sleep. 

And, since it just happens to be Sunday, I'm linking up with Fine Linen and Purple for What I Wore Sunday...because that's what I do .  I just can't let a Sunday go by without letting you all know what I wore (because I'm sure you all just care so much..or not).

The photographer wanted to stage the picture this way. 

You've seen all these pieces before.  Everything is second hand...and that black cloth peaking out of the top of my shirt...that's actually a belly band worn..not-on-the-belly.  But, hey..it works.