39: a massive cultural barrier to natural term breastfeeding & toddler weaning with confidence and calm

Breastfeeding & weaning your toddler with confidence and connection isn't impossible.  But the reason it feels that way (at least some of the time) isn't your fault. 

In today's podcast episode I break down the first of 3 cultural traps that keep you stuck and frustrated on your natural term breastfeeding & toddler weaning journey.

(The other 2 are available in my free instant-access workshop here!)

The trap?  The belief/instinct to start by changing your child's behavior first.

What does it look like?
->Deciding it's time to wean
->Shorten feeds/dropping feeds/reading the weaning story books
->...and your child asks to breastfeed more, not less (and at an increasing volume.)

Tune in to learn how to get un-stuck from this trap (and avoid it if you haven't fallen in yet!)

Want to learn more from me?
Watch my free, instant access workshop: 
Designing Your Pathway to Toddler Breastfeeding Mastery

Grab your free guide to say "No" to the feed while still saying "yes" to the need at  www.ownyourparentingstory.com/guide

Love this episode?!  Shoot me a DM over on Instagram @own.your.parenting.story and tell me all about it. <3

Transcript

{Transcript Auto-Generated}

Okay, going every two weeks feels like a long time in between podcasts, but I am grateful. I am recovering from a cold, so I sound a little nasally but This is important for me to get out to you guys and I'm excited to talk about it. What I'm sharing today is something that I shared during the live workshop that I ran about a month ago or so.

I've re recorded the workshop and I have it available now for like instant access. So you can... Go and watch it if you're interested. It's the same presentation that I gave live. It's not the same presentation that I've had available instant access in the past. So if you have caught the workshop in the past as like an instant access where you just put in your stuff and then you immediately can watch it go and, Listen to this one.

It's a bit different. There's some new information in there. And yeah. And if you came live and you want to rewatch it, you can go ahead and listen to it. Like go to ownyourparentingstory. com slash workshop and sign up and you'll have a few days to watch it. Or if you kind of registered for it live, but then you weren't able to come, it's a great time.

You can go. And like I said, You have a few days to watch it live. It's free. I keep it free for you to do that. And there's a little offer at the end. I talk a little bit about my course and there's lots of great information before that too. So what I'm talking about today is part of what I shared during that workshop.

So, yeah, the workshop went so well. I'm really excited to bring a little bit of that for you today. So, a little background as we're moving into what I'm going to share, one of the points that I talk about in the workshop.

I just, I wanted to be really clear to you that you do not need me. or anyone else to tell you how to wean your child from breastfeeding. It's, it's in you, the knowledge is in you. And I really, really believe that. And I believe that for like lots of different applications and, and lots of different ways that you can use that idea.

Even if there's like a practical problem, like the knowledge is in you to overcome that. The knowledge is in you to recognize when you need support, like medical support or something else. I really, really believe that. So the reason why it's hard. To access that knowledge. It's because there's a disconnection from your own inner wisdom.

And that's what makes breastfeeding and weaning so difficult. This isn't your fault. There is. Also, like a large cultural knowledge deficit, which means that you can't rely on the , wisdom and support from previous generations or friends and family because most of them have never done this.

They don't really know what they're talking about, even if they have a lot of advice to share. Now, I go into it a little bit more in the workshop about why this is, but I really just want to say that, that it's not your fault that this is a struggle and it's also not outside of you. To find the answers to that struggle, 

to overcome that struggle. So, when you're embarking on the journey into toddler weaning, or toddler breastfeeding, or tandem breastfeeding, it feels like uncharted territory. And it is. Like I said, for the last, you know, hundred years or so, a little more nobody's really walked these paths. This is an area that has kind of become overgrown, right?

It's this different land that people haven't really gone through very much. And the problem is that a lot of people will tell you how to navigate that land. How, what to do in that toddler weaning and breastfeeding journey who have never been there and their parents might have never been there. Right?

They just don't know what they're talking about, but they oversimplify it. And there's these kind of cultural messages about what that land looks like and what you should be doing in that land that are not rooted in any reality. They're not shared from people who are standing in that land and say, I know what this is like, and I walked these paths and I can support you through this.

through this, right? And again, I don't think that we really actually need somebody to tell you what to do. The reason why it's so hard is because you've just, you've never been in there before and you've had a lot of messages and ideas, a lot of stories about what that land is like. So you're kind of walking into that land with all these stories in your head and that's what makes it really difficult.

Because you can't, you know, attune and use your intuition in that land because of all this messaging and stories. So I hope that that makes some sense. I really like that analogy and I dive into it a little bit more in the workshop too. But There are really three big traps that I see people get stuck in, and I consider these cultural traps pitfalls.

They're mindset things. They're ways of viewing and working things through that you've picked up outside of that land. And then when you go into that land, you're carrying this kind of information from other places with you. And that's what trips you up. Right? You're told this is how you do things, and that's what lands you into hot water.

That's what lands you, like, falling through into the ravine, right? And then you're trying to get out of that ravine with the knowledge and information from, you know, that you learned outside of that land, and it's not applicable. It just doesn't work, right? Like, if you were navigating, I don't know, a desert, but you've only ever lived in a lush jungle, Like, it's two different beasts, right?

They're two different places, so if you're trying to use that knowledge there, it's just not gonna, not gonna work for you, right? And so that's what I, I find happening. So in the workshop, I share three different kind of, like, traps, and today I'm going to share one of those traps with you, and that is the trap of trying to change behaviors first.

So, this can look like a lot of different things. And I think that there's like applications in a few different ways. One, you could be trying to change your own behaviors first. And I do think that a lot of people who tend to idealize breastfeeding can land there where it's like, well, I'm the one who needs to change.

And that's not necessarily like, you know, a terrible thing, but it's, it's starting with this external piece first. But for many of us, myself included, we embark in this land and we think, well, I gotta just change my child's behaviors. I have to make them stop doing X, Y, Z, right? They have to stop breastfeeding overnight.

They have to stop Tantruming. They have to stop nipple twiddling, and we're just focused on that behavior. That's the primary goal, and that's where we start, this external piece, shirt pulling, whatever it is. So, it tends to look like this idea, this thought, like the time has come to wean, or the time has come to make this change, you know, and you're just like, breastfeeding isn't working anymore, so we have to stop breastfeeding.

So, you start doing the external things, shortening feeds, dropping feeds, reading the weaning storybooks, right? Maybe you're using those, like, band aids on your breasts or whatever it is. Again, you're controlling that behavior, that external piece. Oftentimes, this results in a child who demands to breastfeed even more frequently and with more emotional intensity.

Now, I'll say that with a caveat that some kids can go the other way and this kind of depends on temperament. Some kids are just really easygoing kids, and when you make the behavioral change, they just kind of accept it and move along, and that's cool. I'm not saying that you're doing anything wrong by doing that, but I'm saying for many people, this is a trap.

So, it can go into the dialing up on the emotional intensity, and sometimes this can come out in other behaviors, where the They are maybe not asking to breastfeed more, but they're really clingy in other situations. And my own daughter had like some wild stuff, like she would be hoarding food out of the pantry and like in her room.

And she had like some really crazy play that she was doing like around that. It was really Kind of bizarre from the outside. I mean, we were able to navigate it and recognize what was going on. But I just want to share with you that it's not necessarily, like, straightforward. And it's really hard for me to be like, these are the things that your child will do.

Because sometimes these weird things can pop up. As well, some kids just become really withdrawn. So, in my course on your breastfeeding story, I go a little bit more into why those pieces exist and support you a little bit more to understand what those elements are and what's showing up with your unique child.

But for right now... I would say most kids land in the either. They just kind of accept it. And if that's the case, then you're probably not listening to this podcast because you're like, toddler breastfeeding is no problem. But if you are, you're landing in the world of your child's intensity and frequency being ramped up around breastfeeding.

So the reality, that's like the cultural belief that you need to change breastfeeding first. But the reality is that the reason why you want to wean matters. You and your child, and I know I've shared this many times, but if you're new, maybe this is the first time you're hearing it. You and your child are in an attachment relationship, and that means that consciously or not, the things that you're thinking and feeling.

Which, again, are not external, right? That's all internal. So when you're starting with that behavioral piece, that's external. But the things that are happening inside of you are impacting your dynamic with your child, right? And that impacts your child because you're in this attachment dyad. You're two pieces of a whole.

And that's true of breastfeeding. It's also true just of any attachment relationship. It's easy to believe that if you just eliminate breastfeeding, But that's going to stop all the discomfort that's happening inside of you. But the truth is that attempting to wean without navigating all of that internal stuff first can often make weaning a lot harder.

Like I said, you know, breastfeeding can bring up a lot of stories and a lot of ideas and people can have a lot of misconceptions around what breastfeeding is and why it's there. And we often pick these things up, whether that's from Witnessing other people in our lives breastfeeding or just media and culture or, you know, perhaps it's professional training.

And sometimes we can internalize that and pick up beliefs about ourselves because of those things, right? So it's easy to just have all this stuff that comes up inside when we start to breastfeed. You know, it's fine when we weren't breastfeeding, and now we are breastfeeding, and it's like, Whoa, I got a lot of feelings here.

So we want to shy away from that discomfort inside, and we're like, Well, if I just can... Eliminate breastfeeding out of my life, then I'm just not going to have to feel these feelings anymore. But the trouble is that all of that, the confusion, and the guilt, and the shame, and all of that stuff that can be there inside actually makes it difficult to see the reality in front of you, the behaviors.

Muddies, the lenses, right? Like, it makes everything very cloudy and difficult to see what's really happening. So, you're going to miss. Some really important bits of information when you're trying to just change the behaviors. And that means that if you can work through that internal world first, then you can have clarity.

So the antidote to all that kind of shame and confusion is actually self compassion. And that's where That's where you can do that work. So, a lot of times, moms reach out to me for the tips and the tricks on how to wean their child. They want the hacks, right, to change their child's behavior, lickety split, and ideally ones that are kind of gentle and work fast, you know.

And so they're coming to me like, I just need to wean my child. That's what they say. And They'll often feel safe enough to begin to open up and share other things once we hit this conversation, right? So their focus is on that external. If I can just wean, then everything's gonna be better. I'm gonna get more sleep.

I'm gonna feel better, right? Like, and that's kind of the piece that they're focusing on. But a lot of times, other things bubble up. Like, Recently, I feel very alone in my breastfeeding journey as most of my friends aren't at this stage anymore. Often, I know I experienced this where I had a really great community of moms.

Thank you, Lauren, my friend Lauren, for putting together a wonderful kind of like mom playgroup when I had a little tiny newborn and she had a baby too and we would get together and you connect on all these things at that stage. You hit a stage where it's like, whoa. I'm the only one who's still breastfeeding.

No one else is doing this anymore. And that can feel very isolating and lonely. That's a real big feeling inside, right? I know I've heard from moms, like, I don't want to do this anymore. I wish I just stopped breastfeeding when they were a newborn. It's so draining. And I just, I set myself up for failure because weaning isn't working.

And that is, again, real intense feelings of like regret and hopelessness. And then there's, you know, the other side of things where it's like, I just, I feel like this rage inside of me. I feel like a monster instead of a mother. I feel guilty and sad and you know, that, that gets stirred up whenever my oldest latches, right?

Like not my newborn. So that, that would be like more of that nursing aversion experience where you're feeling certain things from maybe only one child that you're breastfeeding if you're breastfeeding two, but that, Intensity, and that rage, and that frustration, those are really big internal experiences that can happen.

And, again, if you're focusing on the weaning, you're missing that part. So, right now, wherever you're listening, just, I shared kind of three quotes, right? Like, isolation, regret, and then feelings of those rage and frustration, and then the guilt that follows, right? Does that resonate with you? Are there other...

things that come up. If you're focused on weaning or night weaning or whatever that is, the external change that is just going to bring you, like, out of this discomfort, does, is there anything else there? Are there any internal things that are coming up aside from that external piece? So, all of these moms were really Desperately searching for a way to stop all that pain and discomfort inside.

And of course you are. That's not, that's not comfortable. It's not good. It's not, it doesn't feel nice to feel those things. So they're looking for ways to wean their child to save all of that pain, right? To stop themselves from feeling it. The trouble is that they're often kicking off the toddler breastfeeding stress spiral.

And, you know, I talk about this a lot, but it's unconscious that this happens. And that can in turn dial up their toddler's need to breastfeed. The toddler breastfeeding stress spiral often starts with the child asking to breastfeed, or something around breastfeeding coming up, right? And so that, internally, these feelings come up.

These fears in the mom, right? Like that come up. I'm lonely. I'm the only one doing this. I don't have friends anymore. This sucks, right? I'm a failure. I'm not able to leave my child with a babysitter, right? Like my husband and I don't have time together anymore. My child's never going to wean. It's always going to be like this.

And then, and then the feelings, right? Those thoughts come up, and then all the feelings come up. Like, ugh, hopeless, isolated, you know rejected, abandoned. Like, whew, that's a lot of big, painful things that pop up. This is often unconscious, like I said. And so, in order to, like, stop that discomfort, it's often like, okay, I'm going to pull away from my child.

Oof. Whether that's a choice or not, right? So, sometimes it is. It's like, I don't want to breastfeed right now. We're done. I'm going to hold this boundary. This is, this is it, right? Other times, it's like, I'm just going to go on my phone because I don't want to deal with the screaming that's following, right?

Or sometimes it's completely unconscious where your body just stiffens a little. And the thing is, is that your child picks up on that, regardless of their age. They can pick up on your internal experience. And there's lots of things, and I go into that a lot more in, inside of my course, but I think that this, this just little snapshot can really serve you to, to recognize that your child feels that little sense of separation.

And that little sense of separation can be kind of alarming to them. And Because they need you. They need you for their survival, right? We're talking about young kids here. They can't live without you. And it's very like a biologically driven need for your attachment, for your connection. So when they feel that separation, what do they do?

Well, what's their best way of connecting with you, right? Of knowing that you're close by. And what's their best way of soothing whatever discomfort comes up inside of them? Breastfeeding, right? So, what happens when the child pulls on your shirt to breastfeed again and that in turn kind of starts those thoughts again and the feelings again and that can just keep this toddler breastfeeding stress spiral going and it's intense, right?

So, that breastfeeding kind of becomes this trigger for stress and Young humans, they really require a caregiver close by for their survival. So they need to know that you care about them deeply in order to rest in that closeness, right? So it's not just your physical proximity, but it's also like emotional proximity, right?

Like, they need to know that you are there for them fully in order to rest. That comes a lot from Dr. Gordon Neufeld's work and others too, but that sense of alarm that can come from the separation is, is. Kind of like his phrasing. So what are you to do? What, what are you supposed to do here? Right? This is when you need to, if the instinct is to pull away from the discomfort, right, to push away from it, what can actually support you to understand how to navigate that discomfort is leaning into it.

And that starts with some compassion. So you turn towards that pain and that discomfort that you're trying to push away from, and you take a deep breath, and you say, this makes sense, you know, and you learn how to work with that discomfort inside of you. Because when you work with that discomfort inside of you, now you're not making choices.

to change these behaviors out of pain and fear and frustration. But you're able to see, ah, clearly in the reality of this moment, this is what's here. This is what's present. These are the needs that are here. These are the dynamics that are here. This is, this is my reality in this moment. And you can see it clearly because you're not in all of that pain.

And from that vantage point, that's where you can start to make real changes. It's, it's very difficult to do that if you're not, I mean, you can think about it, right, like somebody who's making business decisions, a CEO, right, of a company, and they are really full of fear or rage or, you know, hopelessness.

Are they going to be able to look at the numbers that they need to look at and make wise choices for their business out of that place? Especially if they're kind of not aware of it, if they're trying to push away from it, not, not recognize that it's there. Probably not, right? And I use that example because That's the executive functioning kind of piece that you need access to in your brain, right?

And that's the executive role, right? A CEO has an executive role where they're making those choices. And your little child doesn't have that executive functioning yet. That part of their brain is incredibly underdeveloped. It doesn't really even start to develop until like age three, four, five, and then it continues to develop for the next 20 years.

So, Relying on them to be able to make those choices and understand things isn't going to work out for you very well. And when you're in this big emotional state, you don't have access to that part of your brain either. So, you need to learn how to work with that discomfort first, before you can show up and make the choices that you need to make.

So it's a really important piece. I spend a lot of time when I'm working with clients talking about this, the bulk of the time, really. And sometimes, They're like, I don't really understand why we're talking about this so much. I want to get practical. But it's, it's where you need to start. You need that foundation because that's really, what's going to do the heavy lifting for you in the long run.

And so inside of my workshop which I call designing your own pathway to toddler breastfeeding mastery, I refer to this part as stage one, which is compassion and clarity. And it's really important as you're working through this journey. So whatever you're moving towards, whether that is. You know, fully weaning, or night weaning, or tandem feeding, or just, you know, feeling like you can leave your child with a babysitter, whatever that is, you need to start with compassion and clarity because that's going to support you to move through the internal space in a way that allows you to show up for the external much more clearly and effectively, too, right?

You're not going to be s Like, throwing spaghetti at the wall and just hoping something sticks. So, it's really about soaking yourself up in that kindness. So, it's really, like, I'm just touching the tip of the iceberg here. This is not all encompassing or a complete how to navigate that internal experience.

I know I've given lots of support in previous episodes on On that, and I talk about this a lot, but I wanted to just share it as this kind of cultural trap. It's not a mistake that you're making. It's not like you're just doing things wrong. That's not it. Really, you've been told that that's the right way to do things and shown that that's the right way to do things, but People who did that, they don't understand this land, this landscape, right?

And so that is the tool to support you to overcome that trap. Learning how to work with your internal experience first so that you can show up. That's the tool to get out of, to, to, to not fall into the, that pitfall of trying to change the behaviors first. And it's also what you need to climb out of that pitfall, right?

Out of that ravine. And the, the cool thing too, and I want to share this because I know that this is important to many of you listening, is that you want, I assume, I can imagine, that you want your child. To be able to navigate their own internal world too, right? Not beating themselves up or trying to numb their pain or their discomfort or avoid it.

It's emotional intelligence at the end of the day, right? It's understanding it and being able to work through it and navigating it. And it makes sense that we're bad at this. Maybe bad at this, that might not be the right way of saying it. But like, even for myself, like, it's a skill I have to learn. I wasn't given this as a child.

But when you work through your own as an adult. And you, it's kind of like a muscle that you're developing, then you can actually show up even more for your child and teach them these skills too, and model it for them, and explain it to them as they're growing and able to start to understand things. So that's like a long term benefit.

But the initial benefit, the right here now benefit, is that you can work through this discomfort so that you're not trying to wean to ease your discomfort. You're actually weaning because It feels right to you, and because that's the choices that you want to make, that's the way you want to move forward, and you have clarity, and from that place, you can see the needs that are present.

From that place, you can make choices and not just feel like you're, you know, spiraling, right? So, I hope that that made some sense for you it's It's normal to even feel resistance when I'm talking about this. It's normal to feel like, Oh, I don't, I don't want to touch that. But it can be really simple and profound.

It can be something small to start. It doesn't have to be everything. You're not working through every bit of discomfort you've ever experienced or all of your feelings at once.

You're just one little step at a time. You're learning that tool and how to navigate that. You're flexing that muscle. It's a skill that you're developing and you probably spend a lifetime developing it, right? But it's little by little. Moment by moment, piece by piece, it's practicing. It's practicing how to do that with yourself, and you become better at it over time.

It's showing up with kindness for yourself, and it becomes easier to show up with kindness and compassion for your child too, and to teach them how to do that for themselves, or to model and support them to do that for themselves. So, if you liked this, there's two more traps that I talk about in the workshop, so this is one of them.

So, it'll be a little bit of a refresher, but I'm sure I shared some different angles and different perspectives on that workshop, because things always come up in the moment that I share. So, that'll be the first one, but there's two more that I walk through so you can go and listen to that at ownyourparentingstory.

com slash workshop if you would like to. And as always, I am available over on Instagram or on my email Let me know what you thought about today's, today's episode. And I hope that you all are having a wonderful time getting ready for the holidays, wherever you are in the world, whatever that's like for you.

And I think next time I might share some holiday stuff around navigating family things and traveling and all that kind of stuff because I know that that is something that a lot of you are going through right now. So stay tuned for that.