My Mother Before Me

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Blog Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Timbra Wiist landslidephotography {at} hotmail {dot} com. Today's post is about The personal journey of Weaning. Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed in the comments section at for today's guest blogger on the Breastfeeding Cafe site The Carnival runs July 16th through the 31st!
________________________________________________________________________________ Were you breastfed as a child? What obstacles did your mother face? What was the public opinions? Family opinion? Factors for not breastfeeding, if this was the case? What was the medical opinion at the time? How long was “normal?” Did your mother or grandmother influence you to breastfeed your own child/ren?

For this post, I asked my mom to share what nursing me looked like in 1981, where we would both begin and end our nursing relationship. . .

"Probably the biggest challenge was only being able to take up to six months off from my job for maternity leave. I took a couple of weeks off before and then you were three weeks late, which meant in order to have my job guaranteed to me, I had to go back to work when you were 4 and a half months old. That was a bit sad, but we depended on my income. I'd really wanted to be able to breastfeed until you were six months...which was recommended by my pediatrician at the time. I continued to nurse you to sleep for a bit longer, until you were about 6 months; not during the night because by then you were sleeping through out the night. I don't remember feeling embarrassed or as though I needed to leave the room if I needed to nurse. I would just drape a receiving blanket over my shoulder...likely one of the ones you used for your little ones. Things were quite a bit different then, meaning we didn't spend as much time out and about, having coffee with friends, or eating out. Those were pretty rare occasions. We gathered more often in people's homes. I had friends who also nursed, so our husbands and families were pretty comfortable. I don't remember any specific influence from my mom to breastfeed (either negative or positive), and neither of my grandmother's were living at the time. I remember going to my parents house and again, when I need to breastfeed I just did."