While there are a plethora of sources to support establishing and sustaining lactation and breastfeeding, there’s a paucity of information when it comes to stopping, and this process, like so much else when it comes to motherhood, is couched in secrecy and shame.
Last night, in desperation and frustration to end the clogs, the leaking and engorgement, the utter physical depletion, and because I’ve had enough with being more responsive to a pump than to my own daughter , I googled “how to wean from breastfeeding,” and the very first result lead me to a page from a widely known breastfeeding support organization, an organization I’ve used the services of many times in fact, both during my pregnancy and in my early days home from the hospital. This is one of the most recommended support groups for body feeding in the nation, and hoooo boy was I ever appalled at the language of their weaning post.
It came down to ‘here’s how to wean: are you sure you’re ready to stop? Sometimes it can be overwhelming but there’s no reason to stop. What about just cutting down the number of times per day? If you so wean, your baby will miss the comfort of ‘their’ soft breasts at the offering of cold, hard plastic bottle. The very first time you offer your baby a bottle, you have begun weaning.’ (This is paraphrased, but y’all get the point, right?)
Um, what 🍼 the 🍼 fuck 🍼?!
By this logic, exclusively pumping, does not constitute breastfeeding. By this logic I actually weaned months ago, when my baby became unable to latch and withdraw milk from my breast. By this logic I have irreparably damaged my baby, despite the fact that switching course from nursing to feeding expressed milk has been a wonder for her health (hint: because she’s no longer starving). By this logic, I may only access the information I’m seeking only after enduring shame for that choice. Despite the fact that I knowingly and intentionally googled “how to wean,” which is the title of this prominently linked page, I must not know my own physical and mental needs, since the language of this post erases, dismisses, minimizes, and bypasses the autonomy of the reader. Furthermore, these needs are not my own, because my breasts are actually my baby’s, not mine.
Why is there so little support to cease or suppress a bodily process it took me, and so many others, such a battle to achieve? Why is the information on how to undertake this process provided only after paragraphs of language that shames the desire to do so, and erased and negates the varied ways in which babies are fed breast milk? Why is so much of motherhood like this?
Here’s the thing, it’s my body and I’ll wean if i want to. It’s my body and I’ll wean when I want to. I’m ready to wake up in the morning and run to pick up my daughter who’s babbling away merrily, rather than immediately run for the pump because my breasts are distended and throbbing. I’m ready to put down the portable pump I wear in a hip pack all day, and pick up my squirmy, silly, always-on-the-move daughter instead. I’m I’m ready to be responsive to my own needs, and to Alma’s far more beautiful and varied needs and desires than consuming one kind of milk over another.