Extended Maternity Leave

Our maternity leave should be longer.

While I appreciate I won’t get any sympathy from the likes of my mom, who had to quit her job when she was pregnant with my older brother; those from Holland who get only six weeks of maternity leave; or those from the States who get an equally short time to spend with their newborns, I still think Canadians should get a longer maternity leave.

Particularly now that doctors, healthcare workers and moms have returned to the idea that “breast is best.”

“They” say that you should breastfeed your baby until he is one year old. Wonderful. I agree.

However, if you are as unfortunate as I and you have to return to work, how can you feed on demand until your child is one when you have to go back when your child is one?

Should you quit breastfeeding cold turkey? Pump at work? Or, as I am attempting to do, wean prior to the first birthday?

My best friend JM, who has been doing daycare for years and who has two children of her own, said I don’t have to worry about weaning my son from his daily feeds prior to going back to work. She told me babies, or toddlers as he will be in a couple short weeks, are clever creatures.

He is not going to look to daycare provider, LC, for breast milk. And he won’t miss it because I am not there tempting him with it. She said I should be more concerned about weaning him at night, not for his sake but for my own.

While that did put my mind at ease, I still want to help my son learn to fall asleep on his own, without nursing. I want to make his transition to daycare as easy and stress-free as possible - for him anyway.

So if my maternity leave was say ... two years or even a year and a half, I could nurse until he was one and have him weaned before having to head back to work.

Right Leaning

I lean to the right.

For whatever reason, my son refuses to nurse on the left side. He has been this way since he was a baby.

When trying to get him to nurse on the left side, he either throws his head back and refuses to latch or will drink for a couple of minutes before returning to the right side.

As such, my right breast, in comparison, is giant, while my left side is basically non-existent.

So if you see me leaning toward the right, you’ll know why.

Chair vs Bed

A bed is not a necessary piece of furniture. At least to those who are nursing.

As soon as my son cries, I am up and in his room, often before I am really awake. I scoop him up, I sit in the Ikea chair and before I know it he is asleep. And it turns out, so was I.

I often go back to my bed and notice a hour has gone by. I, too, must fall asleep in the chair and only awake when my son pulls off the breast or I fall so deeply asleep we both shift.

Unfortunately, as he is nursing every two hours or so, it also means I tend to only get about a hour sleep in my bed until we start the cycle again.