My Fascinating Babies!

I had my first child in 1993 at the age of 16 and my second baby at 20. Being a young mother I was naïve and missed out on a lot of things. I am on my second set of children now. I have a 4 yr old and recently had another baby in November.

 It is an odd feeling starting over like this. I find myself struggling to remember the beautiful little things about my two teens that I relish in my little ones today. Even with my picture collection, the memories are so fleeting. It almost makes me want to cry. They are all so gorgeous and fascinating to me.

My younger kids have a lot of benefits that the older ones didn’t have. I am good at this now. One thing that I have always insisted on was breastfeeding my kids. It wasn’t always easy. First of all I quickly learned that once your baby starts nursing – she prefers to nurse.

   Aaliyah looks like she enjoys breastfeeding as much as mom Lakesha does!

My babies always insisted on mommy over the bottle. Any sitter that dared babysit for me (when I had to leave home without the baby) had to have nerves of steel. My kids let you know how much they hated the bottle. For the most part, they preferred to starve than take a bottle. I always imagined them as little baby revolutionaries, with their little clenched fists in the air, defiantly screaming – “Give me booby or give me death!” 

I encountered a lot of immature people while trying to nurse my kids. Friends and family members just didn’t understand. I thought it was silly and gross to feed your kids cows milk. And they thought it was gross to nurse my babies from my own breasts. I care even less what people think today.

I can proudly boast that my babies have never had constipation. Their diapers barely smell foul. And for the most part I sleep all night. They are rarely fussy. They didn’t get earaches or the flu till after I stopped nursing them.

Just looking into their eyes while they nurse-- seeing the contentment on their faces--is enough to convince me that what I am doing is best. It hurt so much when I had to stop nursing my first two kids before they were ready.

I was able to nurse my 4-year-ld for a full year. And I intend to do so with my new baby, Aaliyah, too. This time around I even found a bottle that is an acceptable stand in for me. So now I can take care of business without a guilt trip.  (I highly recommend Breastflow® bottles by First Years.)

I feel sorry for moms who miss out on the opportunity to nurse their babies for whatever reason. It is the greatest feeling in the world.