The Breast is the Best

Yes, I am actually blogging about Breastfeeding. I am an official Earth Mama. But, I can't help myself. I was nursing Ethan this afternoon, and everything was so quiet and peaceful, and he was so sweet all nuzzled up to me eating, and I started thinking about how this is one of the last times I'll ever nurse him and it made me feel sad, and sentimental. (I'm weening him since we're leaving for cancun in a day and a half.) I love breastfeeding my babies. It's one of my favorite things about being a mom. There are so many wonderful benefits and it feels so comfortable and natural to me. I feel very lucky to have been able to do it. My milk always starts to dry up as soon as I lose all the baby weight, and so I've never been able to nurse much past six months. This has actually made me appreciate the fact that I can nurse at all. Some women are never able to nurse and I am so grateful for the time that I get. When Hannah was four months old, my milk started drying up and so I supplimented her until about 5 1/2 months and then she wouldn't nurse at all. On Carter, I started drying up at 5 months and I made it till 7months with him before he quit taking me as well. This time it was my goal (I set little goals for myself to see if I can make it a little longer) to nurse Ethan until we left for Cancun. He's almost 8months old. Well, someone is shining down on me because I've got barely anything left and he's mostly on the bottle, but we leave on Saturday morning, and HE'S STILL NURSING! I'm so lucky that he is a totally easy going baby and goes back and forth between the breast and the bottle without ever complaining. Actually I'm very lucky because all of my kids have had no trouble at all taking a bottle. But, I feel so happy that I was able to nurse him this long, and sad that it is pretty much over, If anyone out there is deciding between breast and bottle, I highly recommend nursing (If you are able). Here are a few of the many amazing benefits:

1. It rocks

2.You lose your weight much faster, it shrinks your uterus back to it's original size, you can still eat like your prego, but lose weight instead...

3. The baby gets all your immunities, translation: less runny noses= happier baby

4. It doesn't cost anything! I don't know what they are making formula out of, gold dust maybe, but it costs about a million dollars for a tiny little container, breastmilk is free.

5.You totally bond with your baby, skin to skin contact is very important for little ones.

6.You have a free hand when your feeding the baby, in my case, to bat the toddlers away with.

7. Free birth control. Most people don't have their period when they nurse. For the record: I am not one of those people, rats!

So I know I totally have sounded like a cheerleader for nursing, sorry about that, thanks for the indulgence. I'm not going to post a picture of myself nursing, (I'm not that natural) so here's some of my beautiful babies instead.

Hannah

Carter

Ethan