Mums, if you were able to breastfeed your precious little angel, what (if anything) will you miss about breastfeeding?
One mother, Allison Slater Tate, recently expressed the 10 things she’ll miss most about breastfeeding her children. Tate–a mother of four and a frequent contributor for reputable source such as Brain, Child Magazine, NBC News, Today, The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, and The Mid–used her platform, and her skills as a writer to perfectly encapsulate a number of the things that most mothers will miss about the unique bonding time offered to a mother and her child through breastfeeding.
Many mums aren’t given the opportunity to breastfeed their children, so, it’s important that mums take advantage of this special time in a your baby’s life. Moreover, it’s important that mums reminisce fondly over the experience.
“I have been very lucky: I have had the choice to breastfeed all of my children. Not everyone has the choice; not everyone wants the choice,” Tate wrote in her most recent post on TODAY.
Mums, whether you’ve breastfed before, or hoping to breastfeed your baby to be, we implore you to read Tate’s heartwarming list of 10 things she’ll miss most about breastfeeding her babies:
1. I will miss the quiet moments of nursing, the forced time to sit and be still
As a parent, stillness is not only rare; it is luxurious. I savour the time I can claim just to sit or lie down with the baby and be together, focused on her. After four babies, I have mastered the art of walking while nursing, but I try not to practice that skill. The chance to hit the “pause” button — even now, when it is definitely complicated to do so in the midst of three other children and the rush of daily life — is too precious.
2. I’m going to miss lying beside the baby and feeling her little feet and tiny toes flex rhythmically against my stomach or leg while she nurses
I love those dainty toes connecting with me. Too soon, her body will be long and lanky, like her brothers’. She won’t be the chunky ball of wonderful rolls and curves that she is now. I bury my face in her sweet cheeks and scrumptious neck while I still can.
3. I’m going to miss bright eyes looking up at me…
and the way she periodically stops and stares at me quizzically all of a sudden, like she just noticed I was there too. It takes her so by surprise that she stops nursing for a moment and just looks at me, locking my eyes with hers. When she was tiny, she stared for a second, then continued to nurse, though slowly, like she was taking me all in or making sure that I was something she was okay with having right above her head. Now that she is older, she will stop, pause, and sometimes break into a big, milky, gummy smile. It is tough to hold a latch when smiling. Those gummy smiles are the sweetest.
4. I will miss the chance to stroke soft little cheeks…
and tufted wisps of baby hair, the smell of soap and milk together.
5. I will miss the way the baby sometimes balls her fists up and holds them so they are together…
as if this act of nursing takes all her concentration and might.
6. I will miss when those teeny-tiny hands stroke and fidget while she nurses
She loves me, and she doesn’t even know what love is yet.
7. I will miss the way she bobs her head from side to side when she is preparing to latch…
stretching her lips and wildly searching for her target like a baby animal. It’s a little scary seeing that coming for my breasts, I admit, but it’s also somehow cute. I blame mum hormones.
8. I will miss dozing off beside a nursing baby, waking up to a baby asleep with her chin on my breast
In a few short years, will that little face really tell me in a fit of anger that I’m not her best friend anymore like her brothers did? How will I ever send that face off to kindergarten to be cared for someone else for the majority of her waking hours?
9. I will miss the feeling of being her home-base
There is not much in a baby’s world that cannot be solved or soothed by nursing. In so much of parenting, I feel a little helpless. In contrast, nursing is like holding a superpower. I know that as time marches on, my baby’s little problems will become the bigger problems of bigger kids. I know too well. I’ll miss the ability to create world peace for her with just a simple gesture.
10. Most of all, I will miss the baby I am nursing
In no time at all, she’ll be running after her brothers and leaving me behind. I’ll get to wear my proper bra and drink a beer guilt-free, and my breasts will dry up and once again look like tube socks half-filled with uncooked rice. But I will never have my baby back again. And that will be all right and as it should be, but that does not mean I won’t miss her.
This post was originally shared on TODAY. Learn more about Allison Slater Tate by visiting her blog site.
