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Militant Breastfeeding Cult

On Strike

by Mandy

Noble Song was born in September of 1999 at home, when his older sister, Timely Rain, was only 17 months old. Nursing went quite well at first. I didn't have sore nipples like I did the first time and was quite comfortable letting him nurse to his heart's content. My milk came in within 24 hours and during those first few days, there were times when he would nurse for 4 hours straight. I nursed lying down and in the sling, and I felt like an old pro at it, until the colic started.

When Noble got to be about six weeks old, he started getting fussy in the evenings and I would walk with him tight in the sling from one end of my house to the other, over and over again. Timely would be right behind me, with he homemade kid sling and a doll in it, saying, "Walk!" By the time he was 2 months old, it wasn't just in the evenings, it was all the time. If he was awake, he was crying. He was beginning to turn away from the breast. I knew I had overactive letdown, but was not having any luck getting it under control. In hindsight, I wish I would have hired an LC, despite the cost. I depended on all of my free resources, ie La Lache League, books, friends. None of the things I did seemed to help, and when he turned three months old, the nursing strike began.

Noble absolutely refused the breast, and the only time I could nurse him was while he was sleeping. So, that's what I did. With every nap and all night long while we both slept, he nursed. This was so hard, too, because nap time would have been the only time I could spend with Timely alone. She began spending way too much time watching TV because otherwise she would be right there with me, being very loud and fidgety and waking Noble up, therefore ending the nursing session.

Noble continued like this for three months. I never supplemented, just continued nursing him while he slept. He never suffered nutritionally for it. He was a fat little buddha of a baby, which made it that much more difficult to explain our nursing problems to anyone who might help us. He looked so healthy, and by that time was past the colic, so he was also just a happy little guy. Toward the end of the three months, I was haggard and fed up. Sometimes I fed him expressed milk with a dropper because as he got older, his naps were fewer and farther between. He was getting hungry again before his next nap and he still was refusing to nurse. I did not want to introduce solids so early, and still managed to hold off on that until he was about 9 months old. I thought about bottles briefly here and there, but could not stand the thought of another nursing relationhsip failed. I could not bear to think of my sweet baby boy not getting what he needed straight from my breast.

I can remember the precise moment when I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. On the very *day* Noble turned six months old, he crossed four milestones. He got his first tooth, said his first word ("uh-oh"), started crawling, and started nursing again. It was still not a complete turn around, as the only way I could get him to nurse while awake was to put him in the sling very, very tightly. At the time, though, I cried and felt like jumping for joy. As far as I was concerned, the nursing strike was over! I had found a way to nurse him while he was awake!

As time passed, he started nursing normally, and by the time he was about 8 months old, it was like the nursing strike had never happened. Noble is 21 months old now and still going strong!

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