(transcript is auto-generated)
To wean or not to wean? That is the question. It makes sense that we wrestle with this question as extended breastfeeding moms, right? You're nearing that one-year mark a lot of times. That was your goal, or maybe six months was your goal, and then you hit it, and you're like, "maybe we'll go a little longer,"
Or maybe two years was your goal, and you're headed towards that, and you're thinking, "I think we need to wean now, I'm ready to wean, I think," and one day you feel like, "Yes, I... we're definitely, we need to wean, this has to happen," and then the next day you're like, "Actually, I kind of love it still", or "my child really seems to need it," and it can feel really super messy.
And it makes sense. I want to just say that emphatically, that it makes sense that you feel this mental tug of war, and it's draining, it's exhausting, and you're not alone in it. You're truly not alone. I have had many, many moms come to me and start a conversation saying, "I know, I need to wean," and then very soon into the conversation saying, "Well, maybe I don't, I'm not sure." So, you are not alone in struggling and wrestling with this, and I want to mention that back in episode seven, I think I have an episode kind of on readiness, and in that, I get more technical. I talk about what weaning looks like from more of a biological standpoint and kind of break the myth that you have to choose a time to wean because weaning is actually a really long, long process. So if you're interested in that kind of perspective and you haven't listened to it, or maybe you have, but it's been a while and you want to re-listen to it, you can head over to episode seven. I'll link it in the show notes as well in case you want to.
But I'm not really going to hit in that kind of technical area for right now. I'm going to offer a different perspective in this podcast episode. The reality is that. We get stuck in this black and white thinking a lot around parenting and around breastfeeding in particular. And it starts before you even have your baby, right? Formula versus breast milk, breast versus bottle. These narratives are really in our faces early, early on. And it feels like we have to choose one or the other. It feels like there is a who is right and who is wrong. But sometimes we want to say we're above that kind of thing, and we don't attribute morality to these things, but then it becomes a question of what is right for me and what isn't right for me, and It starts out with formula, breast milk, breast versus bottle, that kind of stuff, but then it becomes like, "Well, am I going to let my child self-wean, or am I going to use mother-led weaning?" And we have that same wrestling. Is there, we attribute some morality to it, right? Like one's right, one's wrong, one's good, one's bad. But then, Even if we move away from that, then we are left with, "Well, what's the right choice for me?" And I actually want to step away from all of those kind of dichotomies of this or that.
And, well, I'll still offer this or that, but something so different than those practical external pieces, right? Those are all looking at the tangible things in your hands or the actual actions that you're carrying out in a physical realm sense. I want to offer two different options. The options aren't child-led versus mother-led. The options are actually, weaning right now or weaning later, right? It's actually, am I going to beat myself up over the choices I've made or didn't make? Or am I going to have compassion for myself and meet my needs and my child's needs with kindness and love? So the options are really self-aggression, beating myself up. Or self-kindness. And in this paradigm, you don't have to choose whether or not to wean. But even if you do, if you choose one or you choose the other, the ingredients that you need to get to that desired outcome, if it's fully weaning, night weaning, changing up your daytime routine. Getting pregnant, you know, having a babysitter come to the house for a night, a night away from your child, right? Like bringing in a newborn, whatever it is, the ingredients that you need to get to that outcome are the same. Oftentimes we have this idea that like, "I don't need to reach out for support until I want to wean." And so you kind of push off the, you know, the conversations, whether that's DMing me or talking to a friend or making a plan with your spouse, whatever that is, kind of pushing that off and off. Until you are sure that you're ready to wean. But if we look at it from this paradigm of self-aggression or self-kindness, the choices that you make right now. If you choose to move towards self-kindness we'll serve you, serve you now, and serve you when it's time to wean, and you will feel much more supported and be able to move through those changes with a lot more grace, a lot more calm, and really a much deeper connection with your child.
I spoke about this in the previous podcast episode on like clingy toddlers where it's oxytocin that reduces your child's stress, right? So if we look at weaning through the lens of stress and reducing your child's stress, then you will, even if you're weaning. If you're reducing stress through that process, then you are supporting them with oxytocin, which is bonding, which is love. That's why I say you can wean and deepen your connection. When you're weaning with the knowledge and understanding of how stress is playing a role in your breastfeeding and in your weaning, then you can wean in a way that deepens your connection with your child, right? So. That's what self-kindness can do. Now, if I'm talking about self-aggression and self-kindness, and that feels really intangible, it feels really vague.
Let's talk about what these things look like.
[00:06:06] Self-aggression examples
So, self-aggression, beating yourself up, it looks like late-night Googling for answers, right?
And why is that self-aggression? Because you believe that you're not enough. You believe you need to fix yourself with these answers. You're just trying to grab onto something. And so that action and that process is really highlighting this self-aggression that's inside, this belief that you're not enough. Or trying all of the Pinterest and Instagram parenting tips and hacks to make your day go better because you are just trying to fix yourself because you are not enough, right? Or feeling so stressed that you acted so harshly with your child and then mentally telling yourself that, you know, you'll do better tomorrow. You'll do better tomorrow. But that's self-aggression because you're trying to prove your worth, right, through your actions. If I just do better, then I will be enough. If I just do better tomorrow. So I beat myself up, but I'll just, I'll just, I'll try harder next time. And It's this belief that you're not enough, that you have to do more. It could also look like regretting the, quote, bad habits that you've made, whether that's bed-sharing, you know, not introducing a bottle earlier only, you only ever doing bedtime, right? Not teaching your child other tools to, you know, self-soothe. And again, when we're having those regrets or we're feeling like, oh, I wish I just would've, then you're telling yourself over and over again, That you are not enough, that you were a failure. And even if that's not the conscious piece that you're, you're working with in that moment, you're just having those thoughts. That is often what is underlying those thoughts and really driving all of your need to fix yourself, right? To fix yourself, to fix your child, to just do better next time. And. If all of that that's underneath that kind of current and those thoughts is this belief that you're not enough and that you're a failure, or, you know, whatever that is, it's pretty abusive. It's pretty aggressive. Because if anyone else were to treat you like that, right? Think about a boss or whatever. Well, I'm just going to keep telling you over and over again that you're not enough and make you prove your worth over and over and again, right? You're a failure. That we would have a problem with that. We would consider that pretty abusive and toxic. And yet, we do it to ourselves with this belief that it's going to make us work harder, right? If I just, well, if I just tell myself like, oh, you messed up, you messed up. We think that it's going to fuel ourselves to be better. The antidote to your mistakes, right, or your shortcomings, or feeling like you are not enough isn't to tell yourself that you have to be more, it's actually to just love yourself where you're at, and that is self-kindness. So we have that self-aggression, which is just looking outside for answers. Do more, be more, find the next thing, fix, fix me, right? Then we have this self-kindness, which is actually the antidote.
[00:09:18] Self-kindness examples
And self-kindness is talking to yourself like you would talk to a friend or you would even talk to your child, right? Imagine if your child came to you and. said things like they weren't enough or they were a failure. What would your heart do? What would you be moved and motivated to say? Because you would be moved with compassion at that point, right? Moved with kindness. "Oh, oh, love, it makes sense that you feel that way. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that didn't go the way you wanted it to. You messed up, right? You made a mistake. Of course you feel like a failure, but the reality is, honey, you're just learning. Right? You haven't done this before" and you meet yourself there with that kind of voice. Not with a, "well, you'll do better next time. Just, you know, try again and come on, let's go get it better. Be better. "Right? No. But that love, that friendship, that kindness, and you know, it can be hard if we've never really interacted with that kind of kindness before. It takes. Time to develop this if you're not used to it. And again, it makes sense. It makes sense that we moved to self-aggression. That's a lot of us. That's what our parents did, right? And what we see people around us doing and what we've done our entire lives. Right? It's probably what we did when we were a child, because that was the only thing we could control. We could only control ourselves. So if we say, yeah, I wasn't enough. Then it's like, well, I can do something about that. Because as a child, you can't control a lot of things. And so it makes sense that we move into that as a strategy, but now you're a grown-up and you can control things and you can make changes, right? And by changes, I don't mean changes to make yourself better, but I mean changes to love yourself, right? So you can, yeah, talk to yourself like you were talking to a friend, that's self-kindness. Being truthful with yourself about your internal experience. "Oh, that happened because I felt... Really, really awful in that moment. That happened because I didn't feel like I was enough, right? "Not, 'oh, that happened because I'm just not enough and I need to be better and, you know, and oh, that's an uncomfortable feeling, so I'm going to push that down. No, you can be honest with what's here, right? See that it's here, and then you can show up for yourself in that moment. It can also be self-kindness is creating and holding healthy boundaries, right? Healthy personal boundaries with yourself, with your kids and everyone else in your life. And this can be tricky because sometimes we can move into the kind of external piece with this and wanting to control other people just to make ourselves feel better. But it's actually the opposite when we're talking about. Healthy personal boundaries from a kindness, self-kindness perspective because self-kindness is saying, I need to do this for me. I am doing this for me. And you might have an experience, you might have a reaction, whomever, you know, it is that you're setting the boundary with, but that's okay. And I can trust that you are going to be able to work through that. I trust that you know, I don't have to control your experience. Because this is another part where we can set ourselves up to feel like a failure. Because if we believe that it's our job to make everyone else feel good all the time, sorry, but you cannot control other people's internal experiences. So if you believe that that is your job, you're always going to be a failure. If you believe that you have to make everyone around you feel good all the time and feel comfortable, then you are going to be bending over backwards and it's going to fail because You cannot know what their experience is, and you cannot predict how they're going to feel about something. And you cannot stop them from having a not-so-comfortable emotion every once in a while, right? So if you believe that that's your role, then you're always going to be a failure because it's impossible. So, when you set those healthy personal boundaries, you set them, and then you create space for yourself to say, and space for that person to have the experience that they're going to have, and you can offer them that kindness, right? So, you start with that self-kindness, but then it can become real kindness for other people, because it can be like, yeah, it makes sense. Oh, I know you really wanted that. You wanted me to do that for you or be that for you, and I just, I can't right now, right? It makes sense that you feel... Whatever they feel about it. And you can check in with them. Hey, how are you feeling, you know? And that can be a beautiful kindness the same way that you checking in with yourself. Hey, how am I feeling right now? It can be a beautiful kindness to check in with another person. And another way that self-kindness shows up When we choose that, what it looks like is lovingly meeting your needs, both in the structures and rhythms, kind of big picture pieces of your day, and in the more moment-by-moment needs, making changes, because those structures and rhythms. are existing to serve you. You don't exist to serve them. That's a playoff of a KC Davis quote. But I think it's really beautiful and I love to use it in all kinds of contexts. I'm going to use it here because if you do create rhythms and structures and routines in your day, those rhythms, structures and routines are existing to serve you. You don't exist to serve them. So if in a moment they're not working for you, that's okay. Meet your needs in that moment. That is self-kindness, right? And from that place, From having those needs met more in a big picture way, whether that's saying no to certain things or saying yes to other things, to really look at what you need day by day and moment by moment, then you can have the capacity to show up for your little sweet love in your life, right? And just looking back at that self-aggression and self-kindness piece, what one do you want your child to grow up having as their internal experience? Do you want them to get stuck in the self-aggression, or do you want them to maybe feel the self-aggression for a moment, if they're gonna feel it, right, and then know how to offer themselves kindness? Right? I imagine, I know it's true for me, that I really want to give my kids the tool of self-kindness. Right? I want them to understand that and embody that and know that really deep within themselves. And how could I ever give that to them and teach them how to do that if I haven't taught myself how to do that, if I haven't worked through that myself? So how can you, Mama, offer your little one self-kindness? And teach them how to use self-kindness to support themselves if you don't do it for yourself, right? And so, when we're talking about weaning, when we're talking about breastfeeding, Moving from that self-aggression piece, that truly will kick off the toddler breastfeeding stress viral I spoke about earlier this week. And I've spoke about another podcast and I will be speaking about on the workshop this this Friday coming up. And the antidote to that is self-kindness. So it doesn't really matter where you're at, whether Do you truly want to wean or don't? In fact, I wouldn't, if you're feeling conflicted about that and if this podcast episode resonated with you, then I would suggest that you focus on the self-kindness first. Don't make any decisions about any other piece. Focus on that self-kindness first. And self-kindness is a huge piece that I teach inside of Own Your Breastfeeding Story as well. That is really the work because you can learn a concept. , but it takes practice to really have the capacity to reach for that self-kindness in the moments when you need to. And that is what I support parents to do, moms to do inside of Own Your Breastfeeding Story. And that's really the bulk of like the work at the beginning is really understanding that self-kindness piece so that you can show up for the practical, right? Because if you don't, then everything you do, no matter what changes you make are going to be. out of that self-aggression. And when it's out of that self-aggression, you will be kicking off the toddler breastfeeding stress spiral, even with your best intentions. So that's why we start there. And it might feel like it's going to take a long time to move through that, but once you practice, once you start, once you start with it, it's that self-compassion. Once you start with that, it's like a muscle that you're working. And I can say I've been doing. Oral facial myology with actually Jenny who I had on a podcast episode a little while back. And it's basically like physiotherapy for your tongue. And I had really bad tongue posture, and it actually, I have sleep apnea, and I, my tongue was falling back in my throat while I was sleeping, right? So I needed to strengthen my tongue, and my tongue was always very low in my mouth. I didn't have to It suctioned the roof of my mouth. And I was like, when I started these exercises, I was like, Oh my God, this is going to take me forever. I'm so bad at this. I'd be embarrassed to do the stretches in front of her, in front of Jenny. Because I'm like, Oh my gosh, like I just, I can't do what you're asking me to do. But she would want me to mark not just that I did it, but how easy it was. And it was mind-blowing to watch on this little chart that within two or three days, those exercises suddenly felt easy. And now I want to do them because I feel like a badass when I'm doing these exercises. I'm like, yeah! And that is how it is with self-kindness as well. It's not perfect, right? You don't just magically flip a switch and feel like, yeah, now I have all this kindness and self-compassion, but it's probably going to be faster than you realize once you start and once you start practicing, right? You need to start, though. So, If this resonates with you, please come to the workshop on Friday. Or, you know, consider joining on your breastfeeding story too if you want that support because that's what I offer. Sure, we hit practical. Don't, don't worry. We get practical too. But I promise you that practical becomes so much easier when you're doing it out of a place of self-kindness and self-compassion. It falls into place so much faster, and you won't be kind of self-sabotaging all the time. Okay, I talked way longer than I meant to for this episode, but I am so excited. I will see you all on Friday. If you have not registered yet, please do so. And even if you can't come live, you're going to be sent a replay you can watch for a few days. I would absolutely love for you to get all of the goodness that is going to be there and to hang out with you. I'll see you then.