The first time I breastfed in public, I hid. I found a deep, dark corner at the American Museum of Natural History, near the mountain goats and brown bears, and I hid. Baby was three weeks old and hungry, having just taken his first trip on the subway. I was 38 and struggling, leaking and awkward. Burrowed into the corner, I shielded my hungry son and exposed breast with my hunched body and what felt like 82 blankets. When my husband got up to go to the bathroom, I panicked: Who would hold the covers?
And then I had another thought: If it’s this hard three weeks in, how am I going to keep doing this?
Minutes after he was born, my son nursed for the first time. I’d expected a moment of blissful bonding, but at the time all I could think was “Oh, so that’s what nipple clamps feel like. Pass.” When my milk came in a few days later, my breasts hardened into solid spheres worthy of a 1980s centerfold. Pass again.
But then, after much trial and error, he latched and began to nurse, my life flowing into his. Never had I felt more mammal.
Twenty-four months later, I was still breastfeeding that child. To my even greater surprise, I was still doing so in public, this time without shame. I have whipped out a nipple while ordering a meze in a busy pedestrian plaza in central Athens. I’ve nursed my child totally unsheathed, with nary a blanket in sight. I’ve even made eye contact.
Honestly, I always thought women who breastfed toddlers were kind of kooky—the kind of women who make their own yogurt and use crystal deodorant. Yet I had somehow joined the ranks of women who breastfed children who were capable of using forks.
Even though it was clumsy at times, breastfeeding brought us together. He’d roll against my stomach or rest a tiny starfish hand against my arm. Unlike some infants, mine didn’t inherit a cuddling gene. While he breastfed, though, I was able to experience that closeness. So I kept nursing. Through his first solid foods—an apple, a scrap of dosa, a Trivial Pursuit card—to the six-month mark, then on to the one-year mark. By then he was eating whatever my husband and I were, along with drinking cow’s milk. At 18 months he could hold a cup and say “pweazeee”; at two years, he could help order the pita that went with the meze.
I practiced breastfeeding on demand, which is exactly what it sounds like, emphasis on “demand.” On the one hand, I loved having an instant, always available soother, a readymade wound healer and problem solver. I felt like a magician casting a never-fail spell.
On the other hand, the magic milk came with a cost. I had to be always available, regardless of circumstance or location. Mom’s Cafe was open for business, 24/7. Although I might have preferred the comfort of my couch or bed, it was rarely up to me (welcome to parenthood, I know). Playgrounds, churches, planes. The uptown C train, a sailboat with my in-laws, the tomb of Agamemnon. To keep up my supply, as well as our physical bond, I had to overcome any hesitation—initially about doing it in public, and later about doing it with a walking/talking child— and just do it.
Some women decide not to breastfeed. Some women cannot. Some women breastfeed but stop when the kid becomes capable of intelligible conversations. You’ll hear no judgment from me, at least not anymore: all of us are doing our best to work with whatever we’ve got, in whatever situation we’re in.
Everywhere we turn, there are stories of women being shamed or sexualized for breastfeeding. Thankfully I was l lucky enough to never experience either, even as Baby grew into Boy. He called my breast milk “manna,” less a reference to the Bible and more a corruption of “Mommy snack.” He’d pull off my breast to launch into a monologue about trains or tractor-trailer trucks. There was no precipitating incident, no comment from a friend or family member implying that Baby was too big to breastfeed, but I began to sense the time had come for us to stop nursing.
At 27 months, my son was down to one pre-nap and one pre-sleep feeding. By this point, I’d hit every milestone I’d set out to hit: first minutes of life, six months, one year. I kept going because I liked the physicality and the intimacy. But I worried that going even further past the two-year mark might push me into the aforementioned kooky territory, and goodness knows I’m loyal to my Lady Speed Stick. My vague sense about timing transformed into resolve after my pediatrician mentioned that breastfeeding not longer had any benefits for Baby, and could possibly have some detriments.
The internet will disagree, of course. Plenty of people, especially outside the United States, choose to nurse children until they are three, four, or older. But stopping felt like the right decision. For me.
“Manna?” he asked hopefully one night. “No manna,” I said. He handled the news with his usual equanimity. Perhaps it had been time for him too. He never asked again.
I found new ways to soothe and help him. He discovered his daddy’s special storytelling powers, which helped him unwind before bed. Although not anti-cuddle, our son prefers what he calls “love attacks”: charging at us from across the room, arms outstretched, mouth primed to tackle us with kisses.
The other day he shoved a stuffed animal in his shirt. “Look, Mommy,” he said. “I have a baby in my belly.” He moved it higher, onto his chest. “And now it’s hungry.”