Today's Sunday Slurp is a beautiful submission by Cynthia Redding Smith and is a touching story that highlights the joy of a child in the nursing relationship, a delight that opens another heart to the benefits of nursing.
The comments from my Mother-in-law were worse then anything a stranger might say. When my daughter was three weeks old it was "Doesn't it bother you that you are excluding her dad from any relationship with her at all?" and "Her dad was eating carrots when he was ten days old." At three months "It would be so much more convenient if you just give her a bottle so that we can leave when we are ready instead of waiting for you to nurse her." I guess propping a bottle for a baby alone in the backseat would be better then making her grandmother wait for her to eat...
My Mother-in-law has since moved to a different state. When she came for a recent visit she was staying over night. It was inevitable that she would be in the room while I nursed my youngest at some point during her visit. The evening came and I sat across from her in my recliner nursing as we visited. My newest nursling frequently pops off to grin and giggle up at me before continuing on her sweet, slurpy way. After several minutes of this wet giggling, gurgling, silliness my Mother-in-law looked at me with a smile and said, "Wow! She really, really likes that!" It may be the first time she ever understood at a heart level the 'why' of nursing beyond all the facts. We haven't changed the whole world yet but I love it that my giggly girl helped get this very important person in our world there.
If you are interested in making a submission to be considered for Sunday Slurp, please leave a comment here or on our Facebook fan page. We're looking for short, sweet nursing stories every week.
Awesome :) The more people that see nursing, and that see it as a normal, happy, positive experience, the more normal it becomes :) Changing the world one person at a time ;)
ReplyDeleteThat's great! we sort of had the same experience around my family of "8 weeks is more than enough" people. We were sitting around the dining table after eating, chatting, Wyatt got hungry, and as I got ready to nurse, he squealed with delight and giggled at the sight of me lifting my shirt. There's no being discreet when the 4-mo-old is having a party, so everyone stopped to stare and then out came some nice stories of others' 8-week memories. Having nursed my girl for 15 months and having friends nursing almost 4 -year-olds, I can't imagine choosing not to nurse!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad she finally got a glimpse of why you do what you do. MIL's can be mean sometimes!
ReplyDeleteMy evil MIL actually told my husband that I was starving our first son to death because she couldn't see any milk. (This was in the hospital the day after he was born). She also tried to sabatoge our nursing by telling my husband he was missing out not feeding the baby. Sounds like we need a new post, "My MIL is soooo mean she..."
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