Tag Archives: little tbd

Consider the needs of the child you have

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That’s a phrase bandied about in full-term breastfeeding circles. Full-term meaning at least until two years old. Two years is the minimum recommended time for nursing as stated by the WHO. Ok, so I’m not exactly one to follow all the guidelines as set down by the WHO so why do I pay attention to this one? If you look at biological studies comparing brain size/development humans should nurse for 2-7 years if compared to our nearest primate relatives. That’s a long time. Milk is necessary for the development of most mammals and no other mammal in nature weans in order to give the milk of another species.

At this point Shanna is physically developed enough to be able to digest milk from other species and I’m certainly not opposed to dairy (mmmm ice cream) but nursing is different. My milk not only is the absolute perfect blend of nutrients for my species, my milk is specifically calibrated for my child. That cannot be duplicated by a bottle of cow milk.

Why am I talking about this? Because when you are pregnant most women lose their milk. There are some women (I’ve seen this as 30%) who maintain supply all the way through a pregnancy. It is also possible to dry nurse through a pregnancy and then move on to tandem nursing. The reason behind dry nursing is that nursing is not just about physical/dietary needs, it also fulfills important bonding/psychological needs. I already have a hard time with unnecessary nipple stimulation. It will be much worse when I am pregnant. I’m nervous about dry nursing. I’m also worried about Shanna losing out on having milk solidly until she is two. That is the biological minimum humans should have. I’m not sure I’m willing to compromise on giving her the minimum.

But that means spacing our kids out more than I really wanted to. That means probably waiting at least another seven months. I have mixed feelings about that. The Meniere’s has been progressing quite a bit just lately and that makes me nervous. It looks like we definitely won’t be trying for three kids so spacing out Shanna and Little TBD is less of a problem than it otherwise could be. I’m not sure how I feel about spacing between kids in terms of potential future getting along/competitive stuff. All of that is guesswork anyway.

So yeah. It looks like the mature, responsible decision is to wait. It’s only seven months. The problem is that I don’t wanna.

I don’t actually put much store in this

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But I’m curious nonetheless. I’ve been reading up on astrology stuff (hey, that’s as good of a basis for when to try to conceive as anything else) and I’m not sure what I think about some of the signs. We are probably looking at kind of the middle half of the year: maybe Pisces, more likely Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and I’m not sure how I feel about most of them. One brother was a Pisces and we had a lot of conflict. It’s hard for me to judge how much was about our astrological differences and how much was because we came from an abusive home and were really fucked up kids. The same statement can be applied to Gemini except we are now adults and he hasn’t dealt with his shit. Noah and Shanna are both Gemini’s (God help me). My niece, nephew, and a close cousin are all Leos and they drive me batshit; just too lazy and immature for me. Other than that I don’t know too much about these signs and I’m not sure who else I know in them. (Ok, I know the obvious Geminis but that’s it.)

Any feedback?

Hm. I’m not sure second kid should be known as Lizard as well but I can’t think of a good nickname. I guess I’ll go with Noah’s suggestion for the tag.