giving in to giving

I was a little shy about nursing in public when Marie was a newborn, and since she spent those first couple months nursing almost constantly, I rarely ventured outside for more than a short walk with the dog. But I couldn't stay cooped up for long, and since the alternative to nursing in public was for Marie to cry and fuss, I got over my shyness and decided to go for it. Once I got comfortable with it, I was anything but modest. I was too impatient to deal with covers, and I hated the idea of retreating to some obscure corner, so a lot of strangers got to see my nipples. Big deal. It really didn't bother me at all, and I enjoyed nursing my baby in public almost as much as I did so in privacy.

But now that Marie is older, I don't really enjoy nursing her in public anymore. She squirms, she's distracted, she laughs and points at things around us, and she likes to switch from one breast to the other several times within a short nursing session. Combine that with the fact that people look at me more anyway since Marie is a toddler now, and we attract a lot of attention. So I try to avoid going out when I know Marie is likely to want to nurse soon, and when she won't settle for anything less, we find a way to head home ASAP. This almost always works.

Yesterday was one of those days where it didn't work. Marie had slept badly the night before and had gotten up at 6:20 that morning, which is about an hour earlier than usual. When I picked her up from daycare, her caregiver informed me that she had only napped for half an hour. So she had at least a 2-hour sleep deficit. Nonetheless, she was in a great mood and had been for pretty much the whole day. I grabbed her stuff, she waved bye-bye to her caregiver and off we went. Except then I had to set her down so I could rearrange the stuff I was holding so that I could go get our stroller from the center's "stroller garage." Marie did not like this. Not one bit. As I set her down she arched her back and screamed, writhing her way out of my arms, then clinging to my legs, then making herself dead weight when I tried to pick her up again. When I had her in arms again, I tried to soothe her and explain that I just needed to grab the stroller and was now ready to hold her for however long she needed. She settled down a little, but not really. I tried sitting her in her stroller, thinking she might settle while watching the world go by. After walking about 200 feet it was clear this wasn't going to happen. So I grabbed the sling from the diaper bag (a New Native Baby Carrier, which is not our normal carrier, but which fits in pretty much any bag, making it perfect for emergencies like this) and lifted her into it. Well, I tried to lift her in, but her writhing made it difficult, and it ended up taking quite a while before I really had her in the sling.

Once I was no longer struggling to get her squirmy legs into the sling, she calmed down again, but as we continued walking, she kept crying and pulling frantically at my shirt. For a brief moment, the thought, "but we don't nurse outside anymore" went through my mind, but before that thought had an opportunity to pass across my lips, I asked myself, "why?" Sure, I don't enjoy nursing Marie in public that much anymore, but that doesn't mean I need to have an iron-clad "no-nursing-in-public" rule. Especially not when my sleep-deprived little girl is desperate for some relief from whatever frustration she's feeling! So I unhooked my nursing bra and pulled down my shirt (the neckline was just barely low enough to make this possible), and I got Marie latched on. And since she was so tired and unhappy, all she did was nurse. No popping off to look around, point at things or laugh and babble. I did get a few looks, but none of those passers-by saw my nipples - they just saw a woman walking and nursing a baby.

Marie and I made it home without any crying or fussing, and I was so glad that I had given in. And I mean "giving in" in a positive way, as putting my ego aside and giving in to someone else's need. I gave in so that I could give her what she needed.