Nurslings

Natalie is almost 7 weeks old. Time is flying by at warp speed.

I still haven't really figured out who she is. I think that for the first few months, maybe even for the first year, I still think of my babies as an extension of me. With Rhayn it wasn't as strong. Possibly because she was formula-fed and I felt disconnected from her because of that. No, at the time I didn't realize that I was disconnected from her. It wasn't until Gwennie was born and I was nursing her that I reevaluated Rhayn's infancy.

Formula feeding her was not my first choice. I had assumed that breastfeeding was easy and that it would just happen. Unfortunately it wasn't and it didn't. I stressed myself out with pumping and hated every moment of it. It reminded me that I was a failure and that I had done something wrong while incubating my baby (why else would she have a cleft palate?) I didn't recognize it at the time, but I was suffering from some post partum depression, or at least some baby blues.

Gwennie was easy to nurse. She latched on an never looked back. The only time I ever struggled with it was when she was sick with a stuffy nose. She would want to nurse but when she did she had trouble breathing. She happily nursed until she was nearly 3 (she weaned at 35 months.)

Natalie is not an easy nursling. But she is not extremely difficult, either. She fights me sometimes. She doesn't want to nurse non-stop. She wants to lay a certain way. She gags on my nipple sometimes. She started off with a very shallow latch which caused me nipple pain. She will go hours and hours without eating and then cluster feeds. She likes to sleep with my breast out, where she can see/feel it but she's not latched on. Once she is deeply asleep I can put myself away. She also seems to be sensitive to things I eat.

I know I want to nurse her for 2 years, but beyond that I am not sure. I will have to see who she is, and what she needs. Though I feel sad thinking that after her, there will be no more nurslings at my house. I feel a little sad about all of the things that she has already done- like growing into a size 2 diaper already (I use disposable diapers at night and cloth diapers during the day.)

I am rambling. I was trying to write a post, once again, about her name. But I am also trying to do a few other things on the computer (we are uploading all of our pictures to Picasa AND Flickr) and we found some files of pictures that are in different places so we are trying to consolidate them. Sigh its making my computer run a little slow and also its distracting.