#1 is the dominant female. Cosleeps with child, breastfeeds child to sleep, eats mostly organic, unafraid to speak her mind. Patting herself on the back every step of the way. Ordering #2 around like a drill sargent, offering me advice right left & centre, only to remind me I can take from it what I like, choose to act on whatever I wish.
Why thank you #1. I'll be sure to do that.
My partner offers her a wine "Oh No Thanks" she says, "I'm still feeding, it does go through the milk"
Please feel free to ignore the second glass of the evening in my hand. My child is regularly offered a free wine tasting, particularly when I'm in a stressful situation.
The next morning they come in for breakfast. "Oh, Clare, #2 did some research for you last night, #2, tell Clare what you found out."
"Yes Clare," he says "Well I looked on the ABA website for you last night (did I ask him to do that and don't remember due to my 2 glasses of wine last night? ABA being Aust. Breastfeeding Assoc.) and found out that one cup of coffee takes 90 hours to go through a breastfed babies system. It can leave them irritable and alert, along with making them jerky."
Nope I didn't ask him to look this up. I'm already aware of the fact that coffee is a stimulant which is why I use it.
"Righto" I say. Backing away from the kettle & reversing out of my kitchen, away from these people I invited into my home.
"Oh she is perfectly safe sleeping with us" #2 says. "Breastfed babies and their mothers have a special bond, it's mostly bottlefed babies who are affected by SIDS."
I discreetly position myself in front of the large tin of formula, used once a day for a late afternoon low milk time of day feed. The best part about this is her Dad can feed her, with her staring up at him thinking 'sweet. you have some abilities that please me. your no mum and certainly no giant luscious nipple, but this is really quite nice'.
"You know when you go overseas with your baby, you can use your sling with her, rather than a pram" she says.
Yes, thats right, thats why I use it everyday, with my baby. My second baby. I already used it with the 1st baby, now I use it with my 2ND baby. I've had 2 now.
It's taught me things. Such as using a sling, breast & bottle feeding them (and the bond that exists with both), how much I thought I knew when I had ONE child means nothing now I have 2 and everything is different.
She won't be told. Not that I'd be telling her anyway. I certainly wouldn't have believed anyone if they told me having 2 children was this much harder and different to having just 1. In fact maybe people did tell me, I just wasn't listening. Or perhaps more likely, I figured "won't be like that for me". I was wrong. Breastfeeding Nazis didn't help matters, but I'm smart enough to know that I'm irked by them because part of me feels guilty that I'm not like them, that my love for my children is different to theirs. I'm a lot more tired this time around and possibly not as breast orientated. So screw them and their ABA, I'm doing it my way.
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