Your Partner Wants you to Wean; You want to Nurse
What should you Do?

By Jacqueline Harris

New mothers get so much advice from so many different sources: doctors, parents, friends, strangers, co-workers, and the media, to name a few. It's important for a new mother to trust her instincts. After she has researched and asked questions of trusted sources, she must be allowed to feel that she is doing the right thing for her baby, and that her instincts are sound. Above all, she should have a partner who supports her in certain decisions. Among these decisions is whether or not to breastfeed her baby, and if so, for how long. 

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't support breastfeeding. Reams of research and every doctor will tell you that if a mother is capable of breastfeeding (and almost all women are) that it is far and away the best choice for mother and child. Nursing offers immeasurable benefits to the baby, including the following:

• Perfectly balanced nutrition
• Immune boosting compounds and antibodies
• Easily digestible source of nutrition
• Less cramping, gas, and stomach upset
• Soft, mild stools
• Long term benefits regarding brain development

Nursing also offers certain benefits to the mother:

• Convenient, ever-ready source of food for baby
• Quicker weight loss
• Easier return to normal uterus size
• Softer stools are easier to clean up after
• Satisfying activity that increases mother's confidence

Of course, both mother and baby benefit from the tremendous bonding that occurs when an infant receives everything it needs from its mother.

So, it's unlikely that your partner will hesitate to support your decision to nurse. Still, some men (and other women, and society in general) will balk at the idea of an older infant nursing. They may believe that it's necessary only for the first few months. Some people apply an arbitrary age limit, for instance, six months, and think that since the mother and baby have reaped all the benefits by that time, the baby should be weaned. If this is the situation you find yourself in, and you'd like to continue nursing, ask your partner what exactly his concerns are. Here are some possible concerns he may have, and the answers you can give to allay his fears:

He feels that he's not given a chance to bond with baby.

There are many tasks that he can do with the baby that will facilitate bonding. For instance, if you nurse the baby until she's very sleepy, then allow your husband to have the last few minutes snuggling her before sleep, the baby and your husband will share a very special, bonding time. She will fall asleep feeling safe, warm, and loved, and your husband will be the source of that feeling. Other activities, such as playing, reading, and bathing also allow opportunity for them to bond.

He's worried that you and he will never be intimate again.

Forcing you to cease an activity that you enjoy and believe to be beneficial is not a good way for him to woo you and gain positive attention, and may even foster hostility. Tell him you feel much better about yourself and your relationship with the baby when you're nursing, and that supporting you in the decision is showing his love in a meaningful way that you appreciate. Eventually, when the child bearing years are over, his patience will be rewarded, as a woman's 30s and 40s are her time to become adventurous, once the concerns about pregnancy and child care have passed.

Society, or his mother, or the neighbors, or (fill in the blank) are starting to wonder if you're ever going to quit nursing that baby.

Get over this one right away. Everything you do until your child is 25 years old is going to be examined by the neighbors, et al. Unless you're neglecting or abusing your child, it's no one's business how you practice child rearing. If you quit now, someone will have an opinion about that, too. You can't please everyone, so you have to do what you think is the right thing.

Ask your partner this question: In ten years, will I regret nursing this baby as long as I want to, or will I regret being pressured into quitting before the baby and I were ready? Of course you'll never regret nursing until you and the baby feel it's time to quit. When that child graduates from high school, you're going to wish you had every second back. Don't allow yourself to be coerced into giving up precious time.