A couple of nights ago I had a dream which I’m going to file in the category of breastfeeding guilt. In the dream, I had breastfed my son too much, and he had grown tiny fangs, and needed blood to survive. I kept him alive by letting him feed from my wrists, and tried to hide him from everyone, including my mum and husband. The dream reminded me a bit of the remake of Dawn of the Dead, when the pregnant woman gives birth to a zombie baby and her husband tries to hide them both… Particularly since, for some reason, I was living in a shopping mall. I remember most strongly the feelings of guilt I had- I’d made him into a vampire, and I had to hide what I was doing.
It’s fairly clear to me what my subconscious is doing here: I’m trying to cut down the feeds I give my son, who’s nearly one, and am feeling all sorts of guilt. A lot of people recoil in horror when I tell them, yes, I still breast feed; yes, he still stirs every two hours at night for a feed; yes, he’s still in the bed with us and mostly glued to me all night. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a pariah- especially regarding the co-sleeping, which many people think is dangerous (pah!) Until I read the book Three In A Bed I thought I was just about the only person in the West co-sleeping. Hell, I actually held my son while I slept for the first two months. And that’s something I was very hesitant to admit to people, since most of those with whom I first shared this fact looked at me like I’d just said I put my son to sleep in the garden, or some such.
Anyways… As I’ve read many a time, to be a mother is to know guilt. I feel guilty that I’m not feeding my boy whenever he wants to feed. But I also feel guilty that when I do feed him, I’m making him more dependent on me. I feel guilty that I have to leave him soon to return to my day job. And I feel guilty that, at nearly a year old, my son still wants to feed… like, it’s my fault, I’ve made him into an addict or something. Never mind that even the NHS recommends breastfeeding for at least a year, and never mind that in most parts of the world, babies are breastfed way beyond that (usually in a bed with their mother, father and siblings.) Since very few of the people around me see my practice as the norm, I feel guilty, guilty, guilty.
[...As I type this, I'm sitting in the dark between my sleeping husband and sleeping son, with the netbook propped on my duvet. Not the ideal place for blogging, or writing. Sigh.]
