Biting, Breastfeeding, & Bad Advice...

{Disclaimer: This is more about the bad advice you get as a mother/parent than it is about breastfeeding. You will never hear me condemn either choice for feeding your baby; I have done it all and I love each of my children the same!}

I have recently been having some troubles with Maya biting me while nursing {ouch, yes!}. She's teething and she's had some colds and such. I can't blame her. I just didn't know what to do about it. I was getting sore...really sore. It got to the point where I would tense up every time she nursed on the left side because the pain was so bad. When she broke skin one night last week, I knew I had to do something.

So, as in many situations, I took to the Internet to find help, ideas, and information. Luckily, after three kids and five and a half years, I'm pretty good at weeding out the good information from the bad. I was shocked and appalled at the number of sites {popular, well used sites} that suggested perhaps it was time to wean my child. What??? My barely a year old child who is in constant pain and discomfort? They suggested that I take away her one true source of comfort? Crazy, right? Yes, crazy...but not new.

In fact, this is not the first time I've been encouraged {by ill-informed, albeit well meaning people} to do something other than keep nursing my child. When Maya was born a healthy size, some of the nurses suggested that I needed to feed her a bottle to keep her sugar levels up {not true}. When we came home and Maya was nursing almost constantly, some suggested that a bottle with some formula would help to satisfy and satiate {not true}. When I got the flu sometime during Maya's first year, some encouraged me to think about supplementing with formula, thinking that my feeding her was somehow depleting my nutrients and causing me to get sick {not true}. When she turned one year, some thought that should be enough and we could just stop nursing. Once again...not true! Had this not been my third child, had I not had a broad base of very good information, or had I not been so determined to breastfeed Maya, anyone of these suggestions could have hurt or ended what was/is ultimately one of the best, most rewarding, and most successful feeding arrangements of my life.

This is not the first time I've received bad parenting information from ill-informed, albeit well meaning, individuals. Over the course of almost six years, many people have tried to tell me what would be best for my child. From what and how I feed them, to where and how they sleep, to when and if they should go to school, to what kind of shoes they should be wearing...it seems like most people just want you to do either what they did, or what makes them the most comfortable. For years, I was thought odd for my strict nap schedule and my kid's early bedtimes. I spent nearly a year defending Layla's nighttime use of a binkie while I let her decide when she was ready to give it up {which she did}. I have been criticized for allowing my children to go barefoot, for letting them sleep in my bed, for giving them back toys that fell on the floor, etc. So many of the decisions we make as parents have strong opinions attached to them.

I should interject here that as a parent, I'm constantly seeking information...but in the form of facts and actual real-life experiences. I love hearing pros and cons of options and then choosing what I think is best for our situation. And I'm certainly not afraid to go a new route all together. In all the above mentioned instances, I was fortunate enough to have some reliable sources {books, doctors, experts} to consult while re-assessing my decisions. But what scares me is how often these ill-informed, albeit well meaning individuals can influence some less confident mothers. My goodness, I can't imagine some poor young new mother believing that she had to all of a sudden wean her one-year-old after a year full of completely successful breastfeeding just because her child was teething. Many babies cut teeth prior to their first birthday. With the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommending that babies be breastfed for at least one year, how could weaning be the solution to a teething/biting problem.

And this is not a problem that only affects breastfeeding...and I haven't always been above the bad advice. There have been a few times I've made decisions regarding my children based someone else's comfort level and therefore missed out on doing what would have been better for our family. Luckily, I've also been able to ignore bad advice and popular opinions and instead made decisions that were better and more authentic for our family. I cannot stop people from having and expressing their opinions. But I hopefully could encourage other mothers to get good information and make decisions that they feel good about. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what everyone else is doing or what everyone else has done...what matters is that you are doing what is best for your family.

Oh, and a simple correction of Maya's latch has all but eliminated our problem. No weaning necessary.