We went bowling with some friends on Sunday. I hit my only strike of the night (and my second spare) while nursing Genna. I’m sure the other patrons were impressed at my mad skills.

OK, this is my first honest-to-goodness breastfeeding confrontation.

We were at Brookview Elementary all day today, teaching 4th and 5th graders the Shim Sham. (tiring!!) The several times that G wanted to nurse, I just excused myself from the room and went in the hallway. I didn’t think it would be appropriate to nurse her in the classroom, and I certainly wasn’t going into the bathroom, and the hallways were largely deserted. Twice, teachers walked by and commented “oh, sleeping baby.” I just looked at them and smiled both times – no need to point it out, right? One of those teachers came in for a closer look and saw that she wasn’t sleeping – her eyes were open – and figured it out and said something like “oh, not sleeping!” and walked away, and that was that.

So. In the afternoon, G was sleepy and hungry, and I was out in the hallway, but I’d already read everything hanging in our hallway, and I was bored. Shirts firmly covering everything up, I peeked around the corners of the intersecting hallway to make sure it was deserted. It was. So I headed over and read some Revisionist History displays. (And can anyone explain why all of the children put a number after their names? Jenna 34. Rachel 2. Destiny 85. Hm?)

As I’m reading, a woman, about my age, walks up and asks “oh, did she fall asleep?” And she’s totally coming in super close and I was starting to get afraid that G was going to unlatch to smile at our visitor, so I sidestepped a bit. Note, before I stepped back, she was so close that her shirt brushed my arm. She stepped around my back to peer over Genna’s head from my other shoulder, at which point I said, “she’s having her lunch.”

“OH.”

I smiled, went back to reading Revisionist History.

“You need to come with me to the lounge.” It was not an offer, it was the same tone of voice I use with Wally when he’s doing something he shouldn’t and he needs to obey immediately without questioning. I half turned and picked up one foot, ready to follow her. Then I remembered that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

I said, “you know, I think I’ll just go back and hang out near the door to our classroom.” “No. You need to come with me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“This is a school.”

“I know that, but I absolutely have a right to feed my baby here. I’m not going with you.” (yay me!)

She started to talk more, but I just turned and walked back to my classroom and waited for the school cop to come get me. (He never came, lol, but I was seriously afraid he would.) A minute or two later, I heard the same woman walk by, talking to someone else in that loud voice that you use when you want to be sure someone else will overhear you, saying “I mean, I nursed my babies, too, but I would have never done it in a SCHOOL. I just don’t think it’s appropriate with children around.”

Which made me chuckle because, first, why not. And second, what children? In the hallway, it was me and her. The entire hall, just the two of us.

Now, a few thoughts on this.

I was nursing in the most discrete place I had access to – a deserted hallway. I hadn’t seen a child in the hallway any of the times I was out there. I am sort of chuckling that the woman wanted to parade me around two additional hallways en route to the lounge (which I guess I’m assuming is near the office), past one of the most congested areas of the school, and where we were MORE likely to see students.

Second, the woman was so close that her shirt (a tshirt) rubbed on my arm. She was THAT close to me, and she’s my height. She could NOT TELL what I was doing, that close. There’s no way a child, shorter than I and so not able to look DOWN at my chest, could have had any idea what was going on. Not to mention, I was facing a wall and would have absolutely turned however I needed to, or retreated into the other hall if needed.

Third, dang, I was proud of myself. I could have been nicer, considering that we want to come back next year, but then again, I’m not sure how I could have been nicer. I was very polite, but firm. My only other option was to go with her, which I guess I could and perhaps should have done, but the lactivist in me will not allow someone to dictate to me where I can nurse my baby discreetly.

Fourth, why did I immediately feel like a small child when she started trying to boss me? When DH asked me later what the woman looked like, I could barely remember, but was surprised to recall that she was my age. She seemed much older when she was speaking sternly to me.

I’m sure everyone’s already seen this by now, but my friend Jessica passed along this video. This policewoman considered it her duty to breastfeed the infants she found hungry after the earthquake in China, at one point she was feeding 9 babies in addition to her own. She says it’s such a small thing and not even worth mentioning. She’s a national hero in China.

You know the reaction would be different here in the US.

PS, interesting that the CNN footage does not show her actually nursing any of the babies, but there is a brief shot of her on the front page of the Chinese newspaper, and she is nursing an infant in the photo. A large photo. on the front page of the paper.

There’s a lot of bad about China, but this is definitely among the good things.

Love this post.

Attention nursing mothers: There is a nationwide nurse-out being organized for this Saturday at Applebee’s locations around the country. You can read more details here, here, here, and here. This is in response to two events, really. It started with a woman being asked to cover with a blanket while nursing her baby in a corner of the restaurant, then escalated with some corporate people saying that they might provide blankets at restaurant locations for nursing mothers who don’t have their own blankets with which to cover up, and now corporate responses are, well, lackluster regarding support not only for breastfeeding but for obeying local laws regarding the protection of breastfeeding. There are more details available at each of the links above.

(It does not look like anything is being organized specifically in Des Moines, but that does NOT mean that you and some friends can’t get together to nurse outside of Applebee’s! I would organize it myself, but I will be manning my booth at The Stork Affair all day!)

I love this video I found on YouTube. This mama in Africa is tying her baby on to her back, apparently to enable her to do her chores around the house. (it looks like she’s getting ready to take care of some laundry, but I could be wrong.)

Notice her bouncing the whole time, then reaching around to pat her baby’s bottom after she finishes tying up the wrap and blanket. How many of us mothers here in America have gone through the same rituals while tying on our babies?

I received a call today from a new customer, and we got to chatting about various parenting topics, among them Elimination Communication. This customer was not wholly sold on the idea, based on an experience with a relative. (Which is completely fine, by the way. I don’t expect anyone to fall in love with the EC concept – it is clearly not for everyone.) Since it’s not really my place to push or give advice to customers over the phone, I didn’t get into it much, but it did get me thinking.

This person’s main objection was one that I’ve heard often. “The kids just pee and poop all over the floor.”

Now, I won’t say that in some EC households, this does not happen. I’m sure it does. But I don’t think it happens in the majority of EC households, and certainly not in the households of those I personally know who practice EC.

I actually think our experience was pretty typical, so I’ll detail it here.

When Wally was an infant, he had lots of naked time and I got to know his rhythms. Yes, this meant pee on the floor. I would put him, naked, on some sort of absorbent cloth but the boy has always been a long-distance pee-er, and could out-shoot pretty much anything I laid him on, no matter how big. (And, yes, this child is going to hate me when he grows up for writing this.) But we have hardwood floors so I didn’t sweat it. Poop, of course, went on the diaper or pad he was laying on.

When we were not having naked time, he was in diapers, which is a choice many EC families make for their infants. We were all new at this, and we used diapers whenever it was not convenient to be naked. When he was being diapered, he probably peed and pooped during diaper changes at least as often as he peed and pooped while naked, and the pee and poop went on the changing pad or diaper we had laid underneath him, so I think the net amount of mess was about the same whether he was being traditionally diapered or whether we were being more “EC” about things.

So…birth through 6 or 9 months? The mess was about the same whether we were diapering or ECing. Though we were not full time ECers (and didn’t even dare mention the idea to anyone because it seemed too freaky), many EC families I know choose to use diapers with their children much like we did.

Once we decided to do EC full-on, the amount of mess did go up a bit. I chose to have him completely out of diapers at home, mainly to force me to be more mindful about taking him to pee. We bought lots of cotton pants at garage sales, and he wore those. We changed them whenever wet. Poop stayed inside the pants, as well, so there still wasn’t any real mess on the floor when he was dressed. After the first month or two, which were full of misses, we probably changed pants only once or twice daily.

The two things that DID lead to more mess were:
1. Early on, he preferred (as do many children) to poop standing up. Had he been in diapers, no problem. But without a diaper, and with him refusing to sit down, we had to make accommodations. I felt it was more important that he learn that there is an appropriate place to poop than to force any given place on him, so we made a few locations available to him at our home. The shower (easily cleanable) and a particular corner in his (hardwood floored) room (over a diaper).

2. My unwillingness to accept my intuition combined with the arrival of summer. Summer is hot here and we ditched the pants in favor of naked baby. My rational mind overrode my intution far too many times during this period, causing me to miss Wally’s pee signals. Since he was still not able to take himself to an appropriate pee place, he would pee wherever he happened to be.

I don’t know that there was a better solution to #1. But if parents are very concerned about the possibility of needing to clean up pee or poop, issue #2 could easily be resolved by keeping the child in pants or underwear or even a fitted diaper sans a cover.

As we progressed towards “graduation,” of course, the misses became far fewer, and he was able to tell me, first with signs and then with words, before he needed to pee or poop. He was also able to hold it for longer and longer periods. (I was amazed when, before he was 1, he was able to tell me he needed to pee while at Target, and able to hold it while we finished checking out so we could get to the bathroom.)

The bottom line is – even EC kids should not be peeing on the floor frequently and for long periods of time. Just as children are taught (and learn) about appropriate behavior in other areas, they can be taught (and learn) about appropriate elimination. Additionally, parents need to do their part. EC with infants is really more about parent reaction that it is about the child controlling his or her bodily functions. Parents need to be tuned in – know their kids’ schedules, know their signals, and be paying enough attention to catch them.

In homes where any amount of pee or poop on the floor is unacceptable, it’s perfectly possible to EC with the child in a diaper or training pants. The diaper/pants catch the misses, but the aim is still to respond promptly to the child’s elimination signals and to not teach them to use their pants as a toilet.

(I’d also encourage parents fearful of ANY pee or poop on the floor to loosen up a bit. No matter how you parent, at some point you’re going to have pee, poop, and/or vomit on the floor, your furniture, and yourself. Just trust me on that one.)

Bottom line, though, the net mess I’ve had to deal with over Wally’s lifetime has been far, far less than the amount of mess I would have had to deal with had he been conventionally diapered and still wearing diapers until 3 or so.