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The closest I could get Rose to posing for a picture |
Let me backtrack and share a little about my nursing history/story.
I have 4 children, and nursed all of them. Not one of them ever had a bottle of formula. Also for health reasons, also for financial reasons, and also because once they started nursing, they weren't content with any substitute for me- not a pacifier, not a bottle of pumped milk, just me, me, me.
I grew up in a home where my mother nursed all of us children, but never until a later age. She told me afterwards that the oldest she nursed anyone was a year, but I was only nursed for three months, and the majority of my siblings for nine months. This is not for lack of trying- we all had undiagnosed tongue ties which caused our latches to be bad, and her milk dried up. I remember my little brothers and sisters, 9 and 11 years younger than I, especially had a hard time nursing, but mom didn't give up. She pumped round the clock and used a supplemental nursing system called an SNS to allow them to both nurse and get expressed milk at the same time. She worked hard at nursing.
So for me, nursing was a given. It was what I expected to do with my kids, and it was something I would put effort info, make it work, even if it was hard. Because of mom's example.