Lara's story - 11 years of breastfeeding

If there was a Breastfeeding Hall of Fame, my guest this week would certainly have a place. Laura has breastfed her three children, Beatrice, Joseph and Georgina, for 11 years and 3 months. She talks to me about the challenges she has overcome, including a traumatic NICU experience with her first child, her decision not to pump, the benefits of tandem feeding, and the emotional journey of weaning her children. Laura's story highlights the significance of community and personal commitment in reaching your breastfeeding goals, whatever they are.

My new book, ‘Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding: a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents’, is out now.

You can get 10% off the book at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

Follow me on Twitter @MakesMilk and on Instagram  @emmapickettibclc or find out more on my website www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com

Shout out to the following people who helped Laura on her journey - 

Avni Trivedi www.avni-touch.com

Cordelia Uys www.cordeliauys.co.uk

This podcast is presented by Emma Pickett IBCLC, and produced by Emily Crosby Media.

Transcript

Emma Pickett  00:00

Hi. I'm Emma Pickett, and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time, because I was breastfeeding my own two children. And now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end. And I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end to join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing. And also, sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly about that process of making milk. And of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk. 

Emma Pickett  00:46

Thank you very much for joining me for today's episode. Today, I have one of the sort of medal winners of breastfeeding with me. She's smirking already, but I think when anyone is breastfed for more than 10 years, they go into the Hall of Fame. So I don't know where the whole hall of fame is. I don't know which city we're going to pick, but let's make a Hall of Fame, and let's, let's put Lara in it, because she has just completed 11 years of breastfeeding. So this chat today is going to be about reflecting on her experience. She's obviously got a wide experience that we're going to learn from, and we're just going to chat through Lara's journey. So 11 years of breastfeeding. What year did you begin in? Because I'm rubbish at maths, and 2024 is that right? 

Lara  01:29

Yes. Thanks, Emma. It's lovely to be here. I started in 2013 and I began breastfeeding, and I just finished after 11 years and three months. Not that you have to count every second breastfeeding, but I think a Hall of Fame is a brilliant idea for anyone that's done more than a decade. So it should happen even virtually. I think is a good idea. 

Emma Pickett  01:50

Yeah, this hall of fame needs to have lots of different rooms, let's be honest. It needs to have the people that only made eight weeks but really, really struggled and had a tough time, and it needs to the people who've got all sorts of complex issues. We're not, I'm not going to pretend that everyone has that everyone has to breastfeed for 11 years. And I'm sure you absolutely wouldn't either, but you definitely, you've definitely got a room in the Hall of Fame, Lara, for sure. So how many children do you have?

Lara  02:11

I have three children, and they are currently 11 and eight and five years old. 

Emma Pickett  02:18

Okay, it would be weird if one of them wasn't 11. I would be asking the question, what happened there, so I can detect a lovely North American accent, is that where you're originally from?

Lara  02:28

I am. I'm an American. I'm from New York area. New York City was home for the longest. And then I moved to London for what was supposed to be two and a half months for a little sabbatical from a job, and then met my husband, who's English, and the rest is history. So we have, I've been in this country now for 17 years, but the accent is still strong. 

Emma Pickett  02:48

Yeah, and you so you met him expecting to go back to America and continue your life there, and things didn't quite go to plan. How long were you together before you started to produce children?

Lara  03:00

We were together for four years for various kind of visa in and out of the country, things that I'll spare you the details of, but it was really clear that we wanted to have a family, and we were really fortunate to be able to have one. And I know that everyone has so many different experiences and journeys with with children and families. And we were really lucky to have a very lovely kind of community to be around. And I think actually, it's not that I want to take it away from you, but that is such an important theme in my entire last 11 years, for breastfeeding and for being a parent and for being someone who's been able to maintain it and have the support that I needed, because I wouldn't be here if it weren't for a husband that was really supportive of it. But also, you know, kind of, my two constants were actually in this whole experience for my husband and a woman named Cordelia, who I know that you know, well, Cordelia is, and she is. She was the first person we met with for our kind of NCT breastfeeding Lactation Support class, and she set us on a path that was really strong, and she was there for us when we needed her. And it was an amazing experience to have. And so, yeah, I give like, you know, in that, in that kind of round of applause, medal awards being given to other, to people, I think it's also the support that you have around you. And both my husband and Cordelia have been phenomenal supports to me, 

Emma Pickett  04:21

yeah, 100% we're going to we'll send Cordelia a ticket for the ceremony Hall of Fame, exactly, be in that front row. So, so anyone who doesn't know Cordelia, this is Cordelia ace, which is actually spelled u, y, s, and she lives in North London, and she is an NCT breastfeeding counselor. She is one of the people in the UK that must have had the one of the biggest ripple effects when it comes to positive to positive outcomes in breastfeeding. She actually was a guest on my podcast. We did an episode on starting solids, as she does a lot of work on helping families to get started with solids. If you want to hear from Cordelia, check back in the in the podcast episodes to find that episode on beginning solid food. But yeah, she is such a giving person, isn't she? And. It's she gives so much of her time, and has done so for a really long time, and anyone that that bumps into her in their breastfeeding journey is super lucky. Yeah, I'm really glad that you came across. So we'll talk about your husband a bit more in a minute, but let's make sure we've given Cordelia that proper shout out Absolutely. So you had baby number one, yes. And what was your feeling about breastfeeding before that, what was your experience of breastfeeding? 

Lara  05:23

So I may have come from a sort of different version of, kind of a lot of my generation. And by saying that I'm in my late 40s now, so that, you know, kind of explains things. I was born in 1978 in Detroit, Michigan, at a time that it was a very fractious city with lots of difficulties my parents had. They wanted to live in an urban environment. I always actually grew up in cities, and they were really part of community there. And my mother realized very quickly, because she also had three children in Detroit, that there was such a focus on formula feeding, and she just didn't understand it. My mom wasn't from some incredible kind of background where there was, like, a lot of breastfeeding or a lot of natural births, but she, fortunately, kind of came across her own community and realized that she wanted to have a doctor that did things as naturally as possible. I was actually born and put immediately into water, and it was pretty alternative, but she just thought, why would anyone take my baby away from me right after I've have given birth, and bring it to some Hall, you know, like some long haul or corridor down the way? So she fortunately found this one doctor, or, you know, that helped deliver the baby. It delivered me in a much more natural way than my sister had been before, and then the doctor kind of said, oh, you should try breastfeeding, etc. My mom got so into the idea that she started to help support kind of inner city families from very low economic backgrounds and that needed support. And she's like, this is the best way to save money, like just, you know? And this is when there were lots of advertisements in America happening to really push formula. So my mom, you know, it was fairly alternative, actually, and she breastfed, breastfed me for an entire year. And interestingly enough, you know, it wasn't something that she talked a lot about when we were growing up, but we just knew that that was what she had supported. And she was in, you know, kind of that world for a while herself. I had, she had a brother after me. She also breastfed him. So she breastfed all three of us. I think she actually said you were the longest one I breastfed. She said that you just were so kind of, that was, like, your comfortable place, and you were, like, there was a really strong connection. And it's interesting, because I thought when I was pregnant with my eldest, maybe breastfeeding would be difficult, like I even thought. I don't know why I worried, but I mean things, you know, you can have your own worries that come up from nowhere. And I thought, What if I can't do as good of a job? That was actually one of my concerns. 

Emma Pickett  07:57

Yeah, I think that's really natural to I think, to be honest, everybody worries about stuff that matters to them. I think, yes, the people, that people will go through pregnancy go, oh yeah, it's easy. It'll happen. No problem at all. I'm a bit worried about that, because I don't think that's necessarily going to set you up for realizing it does take commitment. It's not always straightforward. So I think really natural to be a bit nervous. How did it feel to be pregnant, not in the same country as her? 

Lara  08:20

It was difficult at times. I mean, my she interesting. She was very, uh, nurturing through our kind of, like, early years, and then she really was all about us having independence, like after that. So I was, I was fairly used to being independent. I traveled a lot for work. I had lived in different cities and states from her for many years. So it wasn't that I didn't have a connection with her. Still, I just didn't feel like I needed to have her like right there at the birth, which some people really want. And I actually kind of thought it'd be easier not to like less people in the room. Made sense to me. But I was really lucky because I started taking a pregnancy yoga class with someone named Nadia nirin, and she was totally champions natural pregnancies when possible, and really supporting yourself physically and mentally before childbirth, and really understanding that connection and breastfeeding if possible, and getting like she really she was a midwife for many years herself. She was an incredible teacher, and to come across her as a yoga teacher was really supportive, and then she kind of connected me with some other people in that field, as well as Cordelia. So you you sometimes find mothers or grandmothers or aunts, you know, it's not that they can't be male figures, but that kind of female support when you need to. And there was a really amazing thing I read, which said, when in my pregnancy, a lot of people put more energy into decorating a nursery or picking up the perfect onesies than they put into getting the right breastfeeding support and finding the right community. And I it was almost like it was a religion. I mean, I I'm not going to sound but I was like working full time pray. Ant extreme pregnancy sickness at times. I mean, not that it was I wasn't ever given medicine for it or hospitalized, so I know that I'm fortunate in that way. But like, I had an extreme response to smells for months and months and months nausea all day long, and I just kept powering through. Because actually, the balance was these really wise words and these really important things I would read, and I would pour myself into, you know, natural childbirthing books, or going to this pregnancy class to stay on, and I really like and learning about these things. And, you know, we didn't actually have an easy labor with my eldest child. And I think that's really important to say. I won't go through all of the details now, but she was a NICU baby, and it was pretty extreme, actually, and we didn't have great support at that time in the hospital we were in, even though she was born naturally, everything went a little bit bizarre after that for a while, but I was able to, like, go really Deep, and I was able to get colostrum and call upon Cordelia. And, you know, I even tried pumping at one point, thinking I had to do it all, and the pumping was so I did such a no, I say I did such a bad job of it. I had so little support in the hospital at that time, and because we're in the NICU, people couldn't come visit, etc, anyways, that I actually was never able to pump again. So I have never pumped through this, through this entire, like, 11 year experience.

Emma Pickett  11:25

Gosh, Lara, that sounds like that. There's a bit of trauma going on there. 

Lara  11:29

Well, there was, and actually, before my second birth, I went, I had to see someone about it, so that I would make sure that I worked through that before the second birth. And the second birth was brilliant, and it was wonderful. And I, you know, I still had some support. But the breastfeeding was like with my eldest, with my it was, it was like, it was essential. I mean, it's always essential, but it was like, I was so determined, but I was also so happy. I put time into reading and learning and getting the right support before

Emma Pickett  12:00

that's important, you had that foundation, didn't you? So even when everything else was swirling around you, and you know, not going to plan that foundation was there that you sort of put in your long term memory, as it were, I don't want to ask questions that feel uncomfortable, but do you mind me asking a little bit about her NICU experience? How long was she there? 

Lara  12:17

Fortunately, she wasn't there for too long. So it was the seven. Well, she was in NICU for five days, and then we had to stay in the hospital for seven so it's not an extremely long time. She is, you would never know, not that you know, but I mean, she just is, like, full of energy, full of life, bounces around. And it was, it was a quite a strange mystery. No one had caught anything, you know, as a problem. And then, and then, we fortunately had an amazing midwife that did.

Emma Pickett  12:46

So what a possibility of infection is that what they were worried about? 

Lara  12:49

yeah, it was in, yeah, totally, totally. It's strange and surreal. And looking back on it, when you can look back at something over a decade away, you actually are like, Oh my goodness. But I mean, there was some it was, it was pretty frightening at times. And that's not to say that I want anyone to worry or to be scared about birth I think sometimes scary birth stories are a terrible thing. It's actually to say that that community and, like, really, you know, making using your voice and making it known. I remember one time I walked into the NICU and because it was a bank holiday weekend, it was actually Easter weekend, someone was feeding some a woman, a nurse was about to feed her formula, and I just went, No, absolutely not. We have put that on the notes. Do not, you know, and I really had to be I quickly, how do I say this? I quickly realized you either have champions or you have challengers. And so you, you, you have to champion your own experience, if that's what you want, and there will be people that kind of challenge it, and through the whole I mean, because every single birth is so different, every single breastfeeding is different. Experience is different with my children, and how I weaned, or how they weaned naturally, or whatever, is different. And I mean, I know that that sounds really obvious, but it's so interesting. So I they're all three and a half years apart. We did not plan it that way, but they all, all three of them, have tandem breastfed that makes sense. So I breastfed with my eldest and my middle, my middle and his and the youngest. And so I have it's girl, boy, girl in my in our family,

Emma Pickett  14:19

you're going to be a very handy person to get some tandem breastfeeding stories from in a minute. You mind if I ask you a little bit more about pumping? And I don't again, I don't want to dwell on something that's uncomfortable. No, I know. I know a lot of people will listen to this and go, hang on. 11 years of breastfeeding and she didn't pump that needs a bit of unpicking. Hang on. What happened there? So you had a really bad experience in the NICU. Is that what happened? 

Lara  14:41

Yes, and it's nobody's fault, really. I mean, it was just we had, at one point, we had someone say to me, you know, to get the baby really strong and healthy, we need to feed it as much as possible. Are you sure you want formula? And I'm maybe I overdo things, sometimes slight perfection. Best edge. And I'm like, no, no, I don't want to do formula. Colostrum is like, gold. I'm gonna just give you some colostrum. And then I thought, Okay, now I'm sitting in a room on my own with this very young midwife who had said she would support me, who was like, really sweet, but, like, she's not a lactation specialist. And in all fairness, you know, I think Cordelia was away then we did, like, but we managed it, and we figured it out. And I basically produced colostrum. Thought I would done, I done, you know, given them some colostrum, I brought it down. And this NICU nurse, who was this amazing nurse, this one guy, he like, laughed. He's like, where did this come from? This is an insane amount of colostrum. Don't worry, we're set for the night kind of thing. And he was really sweet about it, and really, he was a champion for us, and he was really supportive. And then the next day, they said, Oh, you know, we need more. We need more. And I thought, well, then I should pump and feed, pump and feed. And I went into this room by myself and tried to use this, like, basically industrial pump. I mean, it was like a high high tech. This wasn't like a kind of something you have at home, a light when you might pack in your bag, and I tried to pump and I just, you know, there was obviously a lot of worry in the air. There wasn't the connection there. I was in the room by myself. They didn't allow your partner to go in because of various, like reasons of their rules and regulations. And, you know, I was sort of like, I was an innocent I was I had never done it. I was so innocent and naive. And I don't think I did. I knew what I was doing, and I basically overdid it. I mean, that sounds really like a bit extreme, but that is what happened. I didn't have the vacuum too strong cause and completely, like, bruised my, you know, nipple area. And then I just thought, okay, that's not going to work. I can easily just wake up when I need to, and, you know, get into the NICU and I need to. And of course, there's a whole like, cleaning routine and everything, and which is fine. And so I just made sure I kept feeding the baby. I mean, more than anything, I just wanted to be able to sleep next to the baby and be next to the baby, my the baby, my baby, all the time. But I do, you know, if I sound a bit detached from it, or sound a bit it's, it feels like I've done a lot of work to, like, make sense of this, because it was quite a, quite a intense time. You know, we co slept for the next three years, not because of that experience, but because that's what I wanted and what I thought the baby needed. I was able to, you know, feed her in bed. I went through all the safety requirements around that I would breastfeed in a sling walking around, I would, you know, we didn't use a buggy for a while, like I just we got as much attachment and as much closeness as we needed. And I think that actually in an interesting way, I think she's always been like the most connected to me of my children, and maybe it's because she's the oldest, so she's the oldest, so she's had more time to do that. But, you know, we haven't actually gone through the whole story with her yet, because we feel like that's quite big, and it's she was quite young, but pumping was something that I did try again, maybe when she was about six months old, and I just felt really, I felt really unsuccessful. I couldn't, literally pump a drop. I could breastfeed, like, day and night around the clock, but I could not, I could not get a drop out. And Cordelia just said to me when I asked her, she said, just like, let it go. If you don't feel like it's working for you, it just doesn't work for some people, like the detachment doesn't work. Maybe it's the experience you had, like you don't have to do it. And it and it was so weird, because even though I was breastfeeding successfully, I felt until that point when she said that unsuccessful

Emma Pickett  18:27

because you hadn't, you hadn't ticked the pump, yes, so you thought, therefore something was wrong?

Lara  18:31

Yeah, I didn't know what all these friends of mine were talking about when they were sanitizing bottles or doing this or that. And I felt like, well, how am I going to be able to have a successful career if I can't pump, and how am I going to go back to, like, a full time job eventually? And there were all these like, questions and unknowns, and then when I let it go, it was so freeing. I was so relieved, because I just thought, Okay, well, I'm just not going to pump. And I never tried again. I just that, was it, it was done. And I I, you know, it's kind of making these decisions sometimes and sometimes, like life teaches you, I guess, or these things, you know, you can, yeah, I just, I just never pumped again,

Emma Pickett  19:09

letting go. That sounds like that was a really important experience. And I think it is important for people to hear that you absolutely can, obviously have multiple years of a breastfeeding experience and not pump and and we, I think we're in a place now where pumping companies have done a really good job in terms of their marketing, and particularly social media influencing and, you know, influencers and accounts promoting pumps. I meet mums who think you have to pump. I've literally met mums who think you don't get a milk supply unless you pump. Yes, pumping is compulsory, and that message is coming from some really powerful places. I know we focus a lot formula companies and their marketing, but actually, I think we have to be honest that pump companies, although they, you know, really valuable for many families, there is a lot of marketing going on there, which can be problematic well, 

Lara  19:53

and there's like, you get, like, you get those kind of lists from a friend or someone that's just had a baby, and they're like, well, the things you must need before the baby's born. And it's, like, these expensive pumps and these, like, and actually, a friend of another friend of ours in the States, who's an, um, kind of, like a second mom to me, she's like, well, you could just try hand expressing if you wanted to, like, put a bit in. I'm like, Oh, I, by the way, I should add, I can hand Express. I didn't do it often because it took longer, but I can hand Express, and I can breastfeed like, clearly, several babies, but that pressure you're correct is so extreme about pumping and thinking that you need this pump. And actually, do you know there's this kind of underlying feeling like it's a ticket for freedom, it's a ticket for having your life back. And I think it's really crazy thing for anyone to think that your life goes right back to where it was, because actually, you are changed as a as a human, and that is an incredible thing. And there's different levels of embracing that and making sense of that. It doesn't mean you have to. You're never, you're, you know, you can never do any things you wanted to again. But there was this kind of idea, oh, you can pump and then just go off with a girl's night, or go, you know, go, not have to worry about the baby. But, like, I don't even think that that works success for everyone. I think that you think that that's what's going to do it, and I don't think it always does. I mean, people that can pump great. I've watched people do it so many times, and I think that's fine. It works for them, not for me.

Emma Pickett  21:15

Yeah, your pituitary gland essentially says, No, Laura, I'm sorry we're not releasing any oxytocin. Yeah? And you write it may be partly because of that one traumatic experience which you're describing very vividly, that moment in that room with that machine in front of you, you know was, was not a moment for oxytocin and yeah, and there is something definitely psychological that goes on with pumping. But even people who haven't had that kind of experience end up not pumping very much at all. It's not a judgment of milk supply. It's just what happens when you happen to attach to a pump? Yeah, there's one particular pump brand that I'm not going to mention that so many people think, Oh, I have to get this pump. It's super expensive. It's for just a single pump. It's super expensive. And I can't tell you how many people say, Oh, I've just used it a couple of times. Didn't really work. You know, I've not ended up using it. I literally three times a week at least. I'm having that conversation with somebody about the with somebody about the same pump brand. 

Lara  22:04

I mean, we, we just found, like, and, I mean, I probably know the one track we just found there was so much buzz around this whole pumping thing. Do you know what our life was so much easier? I say ours because, I mean, I include my husband in this, you know, like, there is a lot of kit and, and all this extra stuff on the side of your counter and, and actually, I just, like, found it just so much easier. You know, once I once I came to like terms that I didn't have to do that as well. It's so much easier in many ways. We I traveled a lot with children, and often on my own, because my husband was working, like overseas trips, and I would even bring them places for work trips and stuff sometimes when they were like, I say children, but you know, when they were in the babies, toddler, well, up to five years old, I basically breastfed all my children until they were five. That was just like the magic number for them, and obviously, like for me, I guess, as well. And so, gosh, is it so much easier to just travel with a few nappies in a bag and a sling, like you're out the door, basically, you know, passports in hand,

Emma Pickett  23:06

yeah. So number one, who's now 11, she spoiler. She breastfed till she was five, and she tanned and fed. But let's just talk about the first beginning of her breastfeeding experience. So she's home from the NICU. Did you have any breastfeeding challenges? Any early issues?

Lara  23:21

No, she had, like, Cordelia. Even we like to reminisce about it. She's like, she I, she's like, the second I met her in person, and she would have it was like, Cordelia was the first person in our house after we got back from the NICU. Um, she's like, her latch was amazing. Her, you know, like, she just, she's quite a it's funny, I don't know. I swear, breastfeeding shows personalities early on. I really, I like, or something of that connection. She was, like, super passionate about breastfeeding. She fed a lot. And I remember thinking, Gosh, this feels like a lot. Like it maybe I don't know what I'm you know, I don't know what I'm doing, but, like, maybe I'm not right about this. But I'd even watch in, like, Mom groups or with friends. I'm like, she breastfeeds a lot. She has, still, to this day, an insatiable appetite, and she's tall and she's lean and she has an amazing metabolism. I'm like, well, there you are. Then, like, it all makes sense to me, you know? I mean, it made sense to me by the time she was 434, she actually Cordelia. I know I keep talking about her often, but she used to use Beatrice, my daughter in her, um, like, solids, introducing solids workshops, and we'd even send her funny videos of her eating and stuff like that. So, yeah, so it was quite, it was quite, um, fun, I think really, to like, see that that was her appetite. And for breastfeeding, from early on, she didn't have any issues. I think she probably breastfed through the like she probably breastfed every night until she was maybe three and a half, and she breastfed throughout the day until she started eating. She's probably started eating a. Bit later, I think we were actually traveling for a bit when she was around, like, and we didn't want to introduce food, and then kind of like, on, like, not know where the source was coming from. You know what I mean? Like, making it yourself, I think is actually quite I think it's quite important knowing if you're going to introduce meat or vegetables like that, they're organic at first, we prefer to do not having to rely on things with lots of additives and made in kitchens we didn't know, and not prepared without salt and stuff like that. So. But anyways, she was really into food the second she started eating, and she still is today. And yeah, so she, let's see she she started kind of nursery at 14 months old, and I started at a new full time job, and that was like, you know, I think that that's a chapter that's difficult for all parents, and I can remember it really clearly. And we were, we would breastfeed before I'd bring her to nursery. Would breastfeed when I came home from work. Breastfeeding during pregnancy for my next child was I found tricky, because I did have a version at times, I actually had more aversion at times with my second pregnancy than my third. No idea why, but I did.

Emma Pickett  26:09

Can I just pause you for a second just to Yes? If this was a little cartoon, I put a caption that says she went back to work full time at 14 months and she wasn't pumping at work. Obviously you weren't pumping. Yeah, this is true. Actually, are you? She was breastfeeding, beginning a day, end of day, overnight, obviously, at that age and you were comfortable at work, you didn't feel that lactating got in the way of being able to work full time?

Lara  26:33

No, I wasn't comfortable. 

Emma Pickett  26:35

You weren't comfortable. You mean in terms of emotions or breasts?

Lara  26:40

Both. I mean, for me, it was a really big thing, and unfortunately, I really I needed to go back to work like, I mean, it wasn't, it was a new job, and I had done all the interviewing, and they said they were very family friendly and and they would be understanding of it. But you know that that there's that invisible thread I think that a lot of parents that are breastfeeding have with their children. And I felt, even though I was just like a little bit away in London, I felt quite far away from her, because that was big for us, and it was a big thing to be away for my first child. And so at work, I would, I would hand Express, sometimes in the toilet, there was the idea of a lactation room, but a lactation room is really there for someone that's pumping. Let's be honest, right? I mean, there aren't often, like sinks in some of them. I mean, maybe there are in some of them, but I don't think that's true. And the ones I've seen really that, like you can hand express in and make sure the door is locked and make sure no one can see you doing it so you go into a bathroom. That is the truth. I did chat to a few people through the like Facebook, northwest London community that I was part of that had gone back to work or had tips on it, and I just had to kind of regulate it. I didn't do full five days a week. I did four, but it was still a full time job. And, you know, I wasn't as good putting up boundaries then, as I would be now, or as if anyone that spoke to me about it, I would definitely give them the kind of this is what you want to get in black and white before you walk into you mean boundaries with your, with your with my employers, and with with my and with myself and with my Family. And you know, I can tell you, you're going to think that there's all very extreme stories. I mean, 11 years of breastfeeding, you go through a lot of different things, right? I mean, 11 years of anyone's life, you're going to go through a lot of things. I did get pneumonia, actually, while I was in that job, and I think it was all bit too much. I think I overdid it. I'm not blaming myself, but I don't, I can look at it and think that Job was really so extreme for me. This is not to scare parents. It's actually to say it's really interesting, because when I finally had a GP that was like, really looking at it as not just a cold that wouldn't go away, the GP said, listen, here's the deal. There's two kinds of people that get pneumonia, older people that have poor health often, or younger moms like I've seen this before, and I thought finally someone was like, really taking this seriously, but I then had to recover from pneumonia while breastfeeding. And let me just say, there aren't a lot of healthcare professionals that are going to say, this is a great combination. They're going to say, Are you sure you shouldn't stop breastfeeding? Now, isn't this a good time? And I must have heard that same thing numerous times. And was I just really stubborn, or was I just really committed?

Emma Pickett  29:34

You can be both those things, but I was How old was she when you got pneumonia?

Lara  29:40

it was undiagnosed for, I'd say, probably two, three months, because someone kept this one jpgp kept saying, you just have a cold and it's not going away. And I'm like, No, I actually, you know, feel like it's more than that. Like, I'm like, I was starting to struggle with just like, kind of it was, it was affecting me quite in a big way. I should say just so it doesn't really scare everyone, but I'm, I. Had traveled a lot to Bangladesh for work a few years before I was pregnant, and they kept thinking it was like, TB that was undiagnosed. So that sort of also, like, it wasn't that people just weren't listing full stop, but they they were trying to, like, they kind of went down a different route and it wasn't correct, and it was like, X rays and blood work and stuff. And stuff, and it was, it just wasn't coming back. And then they realized it, um, and I did take the time off from work to heal properly. And I did, you know, I do really, really, really, like, I can't say it enough to young moms when I meet them, like, you've really got to listen to your body, because that's when I knew, like, Okay, I did not want to have to go into a hospital, obviously, for lots of reasons, but one of them is like, I'm not going to also stop breastfeeding immediately, like that for me would have been more traumatic than you know anything. 

Emma Pickett  30:52

Did your husband ever say is breastfeeding the right thing? 

Lara  30:56

No, never. I think you knew it. I mean, the commitment wasn't because I thought it was the only way of operating as a mother. It was because I knew that the connection and this is really important, because some people you know might hear this and think it's all sounds very extreme. Not every day was this extreme with breastfeeding. Not everything was a NICU or pneumonia or, like, difficult work environments. But I do think for, you know, for young, for a parent with a young child, you're you're navigating so many things you haven't before, and maybe having family closer would have been, like a really helpful thing or really valuable thing. But I did have an incredible community, and I am someone that really thinks that breastfeeding was one of the most amazing things I could do. And actually, there, yes, there are some, like, there can be some difficulties, you know, I have some various other things I can like, I actually made a list of kind of the things I experienced from, like, the minor kind of, you know, milk blisters I got at some points, and then we found out way to kind of make a nipple shield. But these things is, they can happen because it's just like, every everything has its season. You know, there's like, some ups and some downs, but the benefits are so extremely incredible that it literally the rest of it almost feels like it it doesn't matter. I mean, I know it matters, but it doesn't that incredible connection and that bonding and that kind of, almost, yeah, that that kind that incredible benefit, physically and mentally, and, you know, for health purposes, for the kids, I just think that it's amazing, I really do. And so I didn't not that. I didn't care that I had pneumonia. But I'm like, Okay, this isn't ideal, but I wasn't going to just like, say, okay, drop it. Because somebody maybe said, Should you do something differently? Because I could just see the benefits were too strong, and the connection was so important for me. 

Emma Pickett  32:57

Yeah. So, so did you say she was quite recently, after you went back to work, you got unwell. How old was she?

Lara  33:05

it was probably five or six months. 

Emma Pickett  33:08

Okay, okay, yeah. 

Emma Pickett  33:13

A little advert just to say that you can buy my four books online. You've Got It In You, a positive guide to breastfeeding is 99p as an e book, and that's aimed at expectant and new parents. The Breast Book published by Pinter Martin is a guide for nine to 14 year olds, and it's a puberty book that puts the emphasis on breasts, which I think is very much needed. And my last two books are about supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding. For a 10% discount on the last two, go to Jessica Kingsley Press. That's uk.jkp.com and use the code MMPE10, Makes Milk Pickett Emma 10. Thanks. 

Emma Pickett  33:58

Yeah, so you recovered. Thank goodness. You carried on breastfeeding. You got pregnant again, and your version sounds grim. I've just been reading a lot of people's experiences of tandem feeding for a survey I did, and a version was more than half of the people mentioned aversion in pregnancy. 

Lara  34:19

I think actually that might be the closest I got to stop stopping breastfeeding. Was probably the aversion between the first and the second with the first and the second child.

Emma Pickett  34:30

Yeah, yeah. For anybody who hasn't experienced aversion, how did that manifest itself? What was that like? 

Lara  34:36

It's an out of body experience in some ways, because your body is like, so connected to doing this thing that it's, it's almost as natural as breathing like that is how breastfeeding felt for me, and that's why it still feels like what this has ended now. This has been such a thing for me. It's part of like, it's, it was seamlessly. It seamlessly worked its way into our lives, I guess, and it made, you know, like. Life so much easier and so much better for so many reasons, but aversion presents itself in a really strange way at a strange time. So you're both growing a well, you're growing two babies, right? You're breastfeeding one and you're pregnant with the other, and you have every desire for both of them to like, have the best experience. And obviously one can communicate it better than the other real. I mean, one can communicate it depending on the age, I guess, and the other one, not really at all, necessarily. But it actually feels like this weird, polar experience, like you you want you don't want something to happen that you do want to happen, if that makes sense, you don't want to lose something for a kind of the unknown, and it feels uncomfortable, but also unexpected, like you're loving these two beings, one of them, you know super well. One of them you're growing um, but it doesn't feel, it didn't feel easy. It didn't feel, it didn't feel smooth or seamless at times. But it's not always. So like, I didn't have a, I didn't have a version. Every time I breastfed, it was more I was more sensitive in the evening. Often I was more sensitive in different positions. I actually, like, you know, I'm not sure the exact name, so you'll laugh. But the rugby kind of hold when you breastfeed is was so much easier for me, even though the baby was, like, a top, well, it was a toddler, and it was heavier to do it that way, unless I had prop pillows and kind of, but having, like, having breastfeeding with a baby on top of my chest, where my stomach was growing and so that and was almost kind of the clinginess and the closeness of it that felt like too much. So it was sometimes in the position, sometimes it was the time of day. Sometimes it wouldn't, I wouldn't have a version at all for like, a few months, and then at the end of the pregnancy, I remember it coming back again for me, it also almost always linked up with pregnancy sickness. I had more aversion during pregnancy sickness and the middle kind of term of the pregnancy. I didn't seem to have aversion the same way. Okay, so that's why it was, for me, odd, because it wasn't consistent. Some people have aversion every single feed, and they're just like, I can't do this. You know?

Emma Pickett  37:18

Yeah, when some people have it every single feed and carry on doing it and push through and come out the other side. And yeah, and, you know, those people are amazing, but no, no at all, no criticism of anybody that can't keep going, because it sounds like one of the hardest things anyone can go through. You mentioned that you'd, you'd had some sort of therapy at this point to talk about your first birth, so you felt ready for birth number two in a different way.

Lara  37:40

Yes, I did the I actually, I mean, I laugh, I did the therapy while pregnant with birth on the two because that's actually when it really, it wasn't that I didn't think I would have questions after the first birth, because I'd seen birth from a very different view, and I'd seen the, yeah, the incredible power of birth. That's why every pregnancy is so amazing and so different, because you get to experience them differently. So I met with this one woman named Nicola, and I'd have to look up her surname later, but it's not coming to me. But there was a another woman named Avni Trivedi. She has a brand called Avni-Touch.

Emma Pickett  38:23

Yeah. Avni's great shout out to Avni. By the way, she's shout out to cranial osteopath. She is, if anyone's this, I know we're being a bit north London, here we are. We are. I'm not trying to be. Avni's extraordinary. She helps so many families. 

Lara  38:37

She is incredible. And I another friend of mine who had had a who was pregnant at the same time with NCT classes from, you know, the first pregnancy, she was like, right, you've had pneumonia, you then you have another baby on the way, like, you've got to see Avni. And so I, like Avni, became this incredible part of that community. And I would go to her for treatments, and she would chuckle, because she knew, she knew by the she knew by the third pregnancy, like when I called it was like, oh, is another baby on the way, you know, and she knew kind of what was coming around the corner, but has an understanding and a depth to Her that is just beyond incredible. She's an amazingly talented woman, and she really supported me through understanding what the second pregnancy was gonna was like for me and what how to manage it after the first and after being unwell, she made sure that I was really supporting myself and my health and prioritizing that she knew I was kind of, I had a, you know, my nature was to run around and do a lot of things, and I was quite busy often. And I'm very high, you know, high energy. And she really, like, helped to nurture that other side and like, really slow me down a bit and make sure that I was preparing myself. And she, you know, I told her about the aversion to the aversion experiences i. Having from breastfeeding. And so I really felt well equipped and ready for the second pregnancy. And we had a really good experience for the second pregnancy, for the second birth. And we actually had to keep choosing different hospitals or birth centers, because every time the baby came faster than the one before, and it was like the hospital said, yeah. So we actually had three births at three different birth centers.

Emma Pickett  40:25

That's useful, yeah, 

Lara  40:26

I mean, and now I have a really good range of understanding. 

Emma Pickett  40:29

Do you mind me just asking when you were pregnant, did you ever sort of sit down and intellectualize, right, Let's think about tandem feeding? Am I going to be tandem feeding after birth? Do I want to do that? Or did you just go day by day and realize, hang on, I seem to be going into tandem feeding?

Lara  40:43

I think it was pretty day by day. Yeah. I mean, I didn't see any once the aversion had passed. I just didn't see this hard stop being essential. And also, I was very aware of, like, I wanted my children to be very close, and I thought, well, this is naturally going to help, hopefully, with that, actually, it was even better than just helping with the closeness. What we my first child helped my second child to basically feed, because what we didn't realize is that he was tongue tied. And we didn't realize that even we, although we, like, checked it out a few times because it was quite a, like, kind of strange tongue tire, you know, quite far back. So she was keeping the supply going, essentially. And he wasn't, like, struggling or having a difficult time. He was just, well, I mean, he was struggling the way that he was slower and it was taking longer. But, you know, I love that they have that kind of connection of having 10 and fed together, they have this could, you know, some people say it doesn't have anything to do with it, but they are incredibly close, those two incredibly close, like best friends, and not that any of the other children aren't, but like, there's a, there's a connection there that's really interesting with the two of them, and always has been. And, you know, to, I mean, this will make me weep, but if you're, if you have a newborn baby on one side and a three and a half in year old on the other, and they're holding hands, it's like, nothing is better. 

Emma Pickett  42:08

Oh, I remember those moments. Yeah, a lot of people talked about them in the survey I did as well. It's, it's, there's something super special, isn't there? I mean, oxytocin is powerful, and it's amazing, flooding through everybody. And actually, and I do think, you know, if we have a system of giving children a dose of oxytocin in those early weeks of having a new baby in the house, let's, let's celebrate that. Because I do, I do, think it does seem to help with the with the acceptance and the emotional regulation. 

Lara  42:34

Yeah, I completely, I mean, even if it is just really a few weeks, I mean, really the fact that they still walk around as an 11 year old girl and an eight year old boy holding hands just voluntarily, like we were when we were traveling the summer together. And, you know, I mean, long may that last, because it's pretty incredible, but yeah, that oxytocin is like nothing else.

Emma Pickett  42:54

Yeah, so you had a tongue tie with number two. That's tough girls. And did you end up having that operated on? 

Lara  43:00

We did, we had, we had that operated on, maybe, maybe Joseph was about six weeks. It's later than you would think, but I think that's probably because of the milk supply and the breastfeeding and stuff, and that it was, you know, that it was kind of staying it was, it kept going like my daughter was helping it along. She was sleeping in her own bed. Mostly, some nights she'd want to climb in and see, you know, her baby brother, and she knew all of the kind of, I mean, she probably could teach at that the age of three and a half, at that point, how to carefully co sleep. I mean, she was hilarious about it.

Emma Pickett  43:39

Had you moved her into her own room during pregnancy. When did that happen?

Lara  43:43

Um, a little bit before. I will actually say that was one that we got heat from, from family about that, you know, this is you're going to make a rod for your own back. I will never forget that expression being used. We just like buff. I mean, I think actually we moved her in to her own room when I when I went back to work, thinking that, because everyone's like, that's what you have to do, you're not able to get sleep. And I actually think that was detrimental to me, because I don't think we I wanted it, nor did I need it. And my husband definitely didn't mind, because he naturally is a really good sleeper. So I mean, he's really benefited from 11 years of breastfeeding, by the way, and no pumping. I mean, I said to him today, before I went to work, what would you say? Like, what was, what was the best thing about the breastfeeding experience? And he said, your breastfeeding was the best thing of it, you know, like he said, I'm really happy with our breastfeeding journey. And I, like, looked at him and laughed. I thought, Oh, my goodness, you know. I mean, he has been very supportive, but he, he does not, yeah, he, he's, he's very aware of kind of how much energy and time it meant for me, but he was always really proud of me. I mean, you know, like he'd make sure that he took pictures sometimes, and he used to laugh and. That we needed to do, like, a Where's Wally in America's Where's Waldo book of like, you know, I would be out, kind of on the red on one of the London busses, on the top thing, breastfeeding a baby in a sling with another one next to me. Or I'd be, you know, out of family wedding, or out of there. Then he's like, there's always, like, this, there's, he's like, Where have you not breastfed? You know, like, we we were on a boat once, and he's going, I think you're breastfeeding the middle of like, you know this, everyone's getting seasick, and here you are breastfeeding like, you just would think it was funny, because it was sort of that was our constant in our lives. 

Emma Pickett  45:32

Yeah. I mean, you mentioned ending co sleeping maybe being more stressful for you. And I think, I think it is important to flag up that it is not easier for people necessarily, especially they're still night feeding, to be disrupted in the middle of a sleep cycle, to have to go into another room and feed, to have to come back out into your own room again, not, not always more more restful, 

Lara  45:49

for sure, definitely. I mean, we would jokingly call it the side boob, but the side boob was a lifesaver. You know, that kind of laying on your side and breastfeeding on one side, and that was, that was like the position I slept in, and probably will always sleep in naturally, forever more, because it just makes it easier than having them in another space, in another room for us. 

Emma Pickett  46:09

So Joseph is born, you said that your daughter was still breastfeeding at night until she was about three, so she was night weaned when Joseph was born,

Lara  46:19

mostly. But I mean, you know, there's the occasional kind of wanting closeness and crawling to bed. I just wanted to make sure they both felt like they were. They had that, you know, they could connect with me when they needed to. But I also knew that when she was at nursery school or then in reception, that she had her own time, and that was my time with him, you know, like I never felt, I never felt divided. I never felt like, oh my gosh, this is a real drain. I mean, there were some moments where I'm being like, oh my gosh, give me another snack. Like, I had snacks, you know, especially the first few months, because there's so much breastfeeding for the for the, you know, newborn, like hidden around, you know, like bags of almonds and stuff like that. And I think I may have had a few too many shortbread cookies at one point, because I was like, they were my kind of shortbread. 

Emma Pickett  47:12

Scared, yeah, go to the half Scottish lady shortbread. Okay, so you said that your your daughter fed until she was five, tell me about the ending of that experience. So she started school breastfeeding. Let's just

Lara  47:25

she did. She was breastfeeding through most of reception, really, yeah, and which is completely normal 

Emma Pickett  47:30

and and surprisingly common. And I'm glad that we're revealing that as a normal part of breastfeeding life. 

Lara  47:36

Do you know what I will say? I think it is, I think it is normal. And I also think so I'm not, like, this isn't my industry. I don't work in, like, breastfeeding or lactation. I'm not a midwife. I mean, you have lots of incredible experts that come on and are incredibly articulate, which I am not right now. 

Emma Pickett  47:53

Oh, I don't I think you're doing pretty well, no.

Lara  47:56

But I mean, I mean, you have people that are experienced like, and I my experience is all really just, yeah, I'm, I'm just, it's my own personal thing. It's like, and I've actually, I wouldn't say I'm so private about it, but I'm also not so public. So I have shocked several people recently when I was like, Oh, yeah. So breastfeeding's ended. They're like, what? We had no idea you were still breastfeeding. And these are, like, fairly close friends, because there becomes a point where you not because of anything that's bad, but you just don't. It's not as external. It's like, more of an internal. You don't do it as often. Yeah. I mean, I would still breastfeed out in public if I were breastfeeding, if a child was really, like, had just fallen, was really upset, but like, there's just things change as they turn two and then three, and then four and then five. So I actually told my like, as if it was totally normal, told my children's teachers when I would go for parent conference meetings or and I would just mention it, because I wasn't trying to boast. But I also thought, well, if parents should tell teachers when there is some developmental concern or there's something happening at home with a family member, like, why shouldn't they know that this is a part of this child's life, and maybe if the child's really missing me one day or makes a comment about it, I think it's really important for the teacher to know this. And I think actually nursery and reception teachers, they don't, you know, no one ever said, Oh, great job. But no one ever said what. They just kind of took it as part of the experience. And I think it's really important that parents don't feel that they have to be shy about it. I just think that that's it's not just coming from a place of pride. It's coming from a place of like, this is the child's reality. And so with my daughter, I remember at Christmas when she was like, so she would have been almost five, and I remember that Christmas feeling a little bit at a family Christmas, like people thought it was weird that she was asking me for milk. And I will be honest about this, I became a bit more self conscious of it, even though I was, you know, telling the reception teacher at the beginning of the year, I thought it. Just getting, like, is she getting a bit old? Like I did, I would be lying if I said I didn't think it. And I had a few comments from, don't you think this is enough, like, kind of comments from family members and not, not even to say all of the anytime you went to the doctors with any kind of sniffle or stomach ache or anything, they'd go, Hmm, I don't know if you need to still be breastfeeding. I mean, that would often be the case. So I just kind of, I would deflect a lot of it. I would just, but I started to feel like she was getting heavier and bigger to breastfeed, and not like the, you know, she was a healthy, totally fine child, but like it was, it was starting to actually feel physically heavy for me, like it was my back would feel it sometimes if I was sitting in a certain way and and so I would have little conversations with her. And I was not an expert, and I did not do as much reading as I should have. And I don't know that I did anything wrong or right, but I did the best I could with the information I had at the time, as I was, like, taught by Cordelia. And so I said, Yeah, we'd have little conversations like, don't, do you know, what do you think should is breastfeeding almost like, Are we almost over what? You know? I mean, I was more, but I was softer than that, but we'd have little conversations. Do you think you're ready for it? Do you still love it? And she's like, I love it. I mean, she, she loved breastfeeding, and at one point I was actually away from her for several days for a work project. My son was with me. I had cell I had hand expressed, I stored it in the free like I did this whole thing. But it was when she was four, and it was hard, but we did it, and I think she was quite proud of herself that she didn't need it every single night. So she actually we were away for Christmas, and we were away for New Year's, and we were on this lovely beach, I'll never forget this moment, and she was on my back, and it was like this beautiful beach in Cornwall, and my son was on my the sling on the front of me, and I was giving her a piggyback ride. And she, like, leaned over and she said, I don't think I need mommy milk anymore. And I'm like, like, inside, I'm going, that's amazing, holding back the tears. It's like, you know, and I got Oh, and I'm like, This literally could not be the more a more scenic moment for this. So, you know, there's like, waves crashing in the distance and stuff. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm not ready for this. It's like, one of those big moments. And I went, Oh, that's great. Okay, that's that makes, that's great. That makes perfect sense. I'm happy you've decided that I'm really proud of you. And she had this big smile on her face. And, you know, I thought that was it. That was the end of it. That was not the end of it.

Emma Pickett  52:31

She picked, she picked the television moment she wanted, the scene

Lara  52:36

she totally did. And, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a person that does, I'm a creative person that does lots of visual things. So I had to laugh, because that I literally have that was have that scene locked in my brain forever. She then kind of was dipping in and dipping out of breastfeeding for the next few months, actually, until probably just after her birthday in March. So for several months and the dipping and dipping out, I didn't realize, like, what a kind of impact that would have on me physically. And I did actually get mastitis, which is no one's fault, kind of, in a way, but my own, because it was like the milk supply back and forth, like her. There's all these, you know, I won't go into all the details you can if you want, because you're the expert, but it did. It didn't have a bat, you know, it wasn't brilliant, but it also, I learned a lot, and I did have some, like, bruising, and I thought probably we need to really, like, clearly end this. So we did, we like, Okay, I know you made this decision. I know it's still a hard thing to stop doing, but and I think that we're really like, we've had an amazing time together, and so we did have, like, a final feed in that way. But interestingly, she doesn't remember that feed. If i She doesn't really remember that as a final feed. She still remembers what she said. And what was the trickiest thing for her was that when I started tandem feeding with the youngest child, she really missed it again. 

Emma Pickett  54:03

Yeah, that's a moment everybody else is breastfeeding, apart from her, that must, should

Lara  54:06

say, Please, could I have some milk? Can't you just give me some milk? I go, Oh, gosh, you know, but she didn't breastfeed like breastfeed, breastfeed again, because I knew that it was your whole you physically, you change. You know that doesn't work the same way, so, but it's funny. I said to her before speaking to Emma, I said, you know, would you still miss breastfeeding? And she said, I absolutely do.

Emma Pickett  54:37

Sweet. That's lovely that she can voice that. So, so you must have got pregnant with number three not long after she finished feeding. I'm just trying to work out the maths. 

Lara  54:46

Yeah, I actually had, we had a miscarriage in between two and three. Thank you. That's very kind of you to say. I think it's, again, part of the interesting journey of pregnancy and families and. Eyes, and I breastfed through the through the miscarriage, and actually that saved me.

Emma Pickett  55:08

Yeah, yeah. I've heard a lot of people say that, actually a lot of people have said that, that that was, that was a gift, being able to breastfeed through that experience. I'm so sorry you went through that.

Lara  55:17

Thank you. But the third child has so much energy, and she's such a firework. And do you know what's interesting? Though, I have to give my son credit. He really is like he is has two incredibly confident and very vocal, fun, energetic sisters, and he is this, like, calm, pretty chill kid who's very thoughtful, and he likes to kind of have, yeah, he's quite steady and he's quite calm, and he has breastfed with both sisters and a miscarriage. And pretty awesome. 

Emma Pickett  55:59

Yeah, they're funny. Pretty awesome. Okay, so we've got number three. Joseph was still breastfeeding, obviously, through that pregnancy, but you said you didn't have so much aversion with your your third break. 

Lara  56:10

No, I didn't. I didn't, and I just thought it was, I thought if I didn't have a lot of aversion, then I would just continue forward. And again, it wasn't like this child now has to tend and breastfeed with the next child, because that's what I did with the last two like, you don't know, you know, the child could just look up at you one day and say, I don't want to breastfeed anymore, and in the middle of a pregnancy, and that could be the end of it, but it just worked for me, and it worked like and it worked for him, and so we just continued forwards. And the closeness of like the older two, and the excitement for the baby on the way, was just a really beautiful thing, a really special time in our lives. I think I'll probably always look back on it really fondly. I can remember breastfeeding while having breastfeeding with my son, while having contractions in my you know, for my pregnancy, well, for labor, basically, for my third child, and also being curled up with my eldest daughter, and like, there's just something really powerful about that. And then, you know, we went off again to the closest birth center we could find to have a child 45 minutes later, after arriving and basically skipping the queue in the birth center line that evening. And that was an early June baby. She was born really healthy, really happy immediately, like, latched on and started feeding. I thought, great. This is lovely and great. And couldn't wait to get home for the kids to meet her. It was really, really sweet. And then I remember about three days after, four days after she was born, my son, my mom had taken my son off to, like, up the playground in Queens Park, and she said, you know, like, oh, let's play for better. And he looked at her, and he said, Can I go back and see my little sister? And he just wanted to, like, spend as much time with her as possible, and again, hold her hand and breastfeed alongside her. And he thought it was so funny how little she was next to him, and you do immediately think these children have become so much bigger, the second the youngest bait, the younger ones born. You're like, Whoa. What's happened? These feet have grown overnight or something like, what's going on? But we were really fortunate that everything just went really smoothly. 

Emma Pickett  58:37

I mean, yeah, so you met, you mentioned that your eldest asked to feed a couple of times she did, and your response was not going to happen, and you're in the loveliest, gentlest way possible. But other than that, she was okay. She was okay.

Lara  58:51

I may have given her a few drops of breast milk at one point or another, but not, like right from the breast, and she was we did it kind of as a playful thing. I think that's, like, really important to say that we didn't. It wasn't like, oh, gosh, why are you asking? Or, you know what the rule is? Or, you know, because I think I said, you know, no, this isn't great. But, I mean, we would kind of make a joke out of it. And I think breastfeeding shouldn't get so serious in the house that, you know, oh, don't come near me when I'm breastfeeding. Or, oh, this has to be my pillow. Like, the whole thing about why it worked well for our life is because there was flexibility around it, you know. And so sometimes I'd breastfeed in a bathtub because it just was like fun. There's something different to do. And, you know, you might be on the sofa and there might be kids climbing around or whatever, but I didn't want them to think like, this is the precious new baby and everyone else to the side. I think there was like a I wanted it to feel quite interwoven. 

Emma Pickett  59:45

And yeah, had you, did you go back to work after you, after Joseph was born? 

Lara  59:50

What was I started consulting projects. I think you probably can imagine that I felt like a full time job with a on a board of director. Kind of version of a corporate lifestyle was not. Really ideal, and so I did have, like, a nice flexibility with taking on some consulting work, and some of the projects would be bigger, at times, than others. He didn't actually start nursery until he was three. I had figured out a system with some other families of like, sharing a nanny, and the nanny would come across town to like, where I would do meetings some days in London, and she'd find, like, a little playground or something nearby, and then she'd come back to me. I'd breastfeed for a bit, and then I'd bring it back. I wasn't going to do the same thing I did before, because it doesn't, it didn't wasn't as great for me as it well, as it could have been, as it should have been. So I ha, I've changed my career a lot around my family needs. And I think the more women can do that, the more they're supported in doing that, the better. I think that that, again, is that, you know, some people will champion you and some people will challenge you, and I think I had to champion like myself and and my family. 

Emma Pickett  1:00:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you've found a good balance, which is which is great. Tell us about the end of Joseph's breastfeeding experience. How was his weaning? 

Lara  1:01:05

So Joseph was, he was quite he was very sweet as well. He He Joseph had like a speech development issues, and he knew exactly what he wanted to say. He had a great vocabulary. Unfortunately, vocabulary. Unfortunately, a lot of people couldn't understand him. So he was very close to me, because I could understand him. And his big sister would basically translate all the time for him, for everyone that ever spoke to him or that he wanted to speak to. And so he was like, always, I felt like he was always very close, if that makes sense, he was always kind of holding onto the side of my skirt or my skirt or my dress, or, you know, my hand or whatever. So I knew that I had to kind of start the conversation even sooner than I had with my eldest. And I would talk about, you know, well, we probably won't breastfeed for forever. And I even asked questions like, how, how? What age would you like to stop breastfeeding? I'd say things like, with this really cute little like, kind of Lisp, like, 99 or something, you go, Okay, well, yeah, that's, I mean, that could be an option. I'm not so sure how that would work, you know, and you would, I would just start, like, these really kind of loose explorations of conversations with him. But it was obviously like I was teeing this up, you know, in a way, setting this up. So eventually I said, Joseph, I think, I think maybe, like, we've been talking about it for months at that point, I think maybe it's a good idea, if we think about it like, you know, would you like to stop feeding? Do you still want to feed? You're not feeding as much. It's only like every night, maybe sometimes every other night, you know, what would you like to do? How do you feel? How are you growing that kind of thing? And then he said, he was like, Oh, wait, oh, wait. I think I'm gonna, I think I'm ready to stop. And he was really clear about it. And he we did a final feed that was really clear in my mind, like with Joseph. It's so funny. It's he is like, he never. Then asked again, if that makes sense, but because he was very clear, and we just had this lovely feed. And I said, Can I take a picture or two? And I did. And he was, like, really cute. And there was this amazing, like, sunlight coming in the room. And my husband had taken the the two girls out for a walk, and then he returned with, like, I mean, we don't really do this much in our house, but, like, several kinds of ice cream, and we had, like, this big kind of ice cream party to celebrate afterwards. And Joseph still talks about his ice cream, yeah, because you would think like he'd never had, I mean, we do have ice cream often, but not like several containers on a table at once, kind of thing that we make a big thing on. And he loved that, that memory. And I, I quickly thought, I better write all of this down. So I wrote down his breastfeeding journey and some of the highlights and stuff in a little put it in a little envelope, and then I wrote down my daughter's one as well, my eldest daughters, I should say, and so they would have that, I will say, like, you know, spoiler alert, I did buy a third card. That was the saying that matched the other two. And where I've put it right now, Emma, I have no idea, but I need to find it.

Emma Pickett  1:03:59

Okay, you've got three children, you're allowed to lose a card, you're allowed to lose a card, and you've got three children,

Lara  1:04:04

I'm like, I'll find it one of these days when I'm going through a pile of paperwork or whatever.

Emma Pickett  1:04:09

So Joseph's journey came to an end, and doesn't sound like he was distressed at all. It sounds as though you know those, those lovely as you described, and those open, exploratory conversations, were very much part of that story. So now you're just breastfeeding one and breastfeeding one. And how did things go? How did that journey come to an end? 

Lara  1:04:26

So she breastfed through, you know, the covid years, the pandemic through us having covid, kind of, you know, just all these, sort of, through a big family, big moves, through

Emma Pickett  1:04:41

your homeschooling situation must have been fun, by the way. I'm just thinking you've got a, yeah, three little people and two little people at school. 

Lara  1:04:49

And yes, she was eight months when covid started, like when we went into the pandemic, and Joseph had, like, speech concerns. He had just been signed up for speech therapy. Which we had to do remotely and, like, that's a whole kind of crazy thing to navigate. My oldest one was, like, really just starting to read fully on her own and also learning how to use a laptop. I mean, it was pretty nuts. And the the youngest child started walking at eight months old in covid, and it was like, week one, and we look across the room and my husband are like, what is happening? I mean, she had barely any hair. Still, she has very thin hair, barely any hair, walking across the room, and we're like, I'm sorry,

Emma Pickett  1:05:33

joking right now, first time, moms are like, come on. Walk. Walk. Yeah, yeah,

Lara  1:05:42

yeah. I was like, Oh my gosh, and like that. I just thought, oh my goodness, my like, my world has changed overnight. Because, anyways, I had to be so on top of everything, night and day, because she was just so capable of moving around and doing stairs, like, a day after she started a walk. I mean, just It was nuts. It was really nuts. But she wanted to keep up with all the big kids. And she's still a bit like that, you know, she's like the little dog that doesn't she's, she's a, she thinks she's a big dog, but she's really a little dog kind of thing, you know, like, and she is actually quite petite as well. So the whole thing was even more comical. But yeah, just breastfeeding one and just doing covid and homeschooling three children. So one who was crawling over the table while, like, you know, trying to take the, you know, close the Zoom call on the kids class with a teacher, and then the other one trying to, you know, teach, had them how to read and write and add and subtract and everything. So it was busy, but she just went along with it. Breastfeeding continued along. It was a very, you know, just kind of part of our life. And this one's interesting, because what did I always worry about? Let's be really honest. As every year, another year breastfeeding went by, I thought, will this be the last year? How will I ever finish breastfeeding? And started doing the math, and I'm like, am I gonna, like, end breastfeeding and hit menopause right away? Am I gonna end breastfeeding and have like, a total, like, life meltdown, because I've been doing it for so long, 

Emma Pickett  1:07:10

such a big part of your identity for so long, I can Yeah,

Lara  1:07:14

like, what? Who is this person going to be when she stops breastfeeding? And this is why it's so surreal for me, because I still can't quite believe I stopped, because it happened physically, slowly and gradually, without me realizing it. And that sounds totally out of touch for someone that's been breastfeeding so long, but it was almost like my body knew what I needed, and knew that if I my body knew more than my brain did. I remember someone saying that, like, when you were, like, preparing you for labor, like, let your body do the work. It knows what it needs, like, tell your brain to, like, step to the side. And it's sort of, in a weird way, of, like, years of me wondering, how would this whole thing end? How would this end? You know, basically, if you think about it, for five years, I've been wondering, how would this end? Because I wasn't, you know, we weren't. We didn't have another child. There wasn't going to be another tandem situation. And it ended just one night by her looking up at me and saying, there's no more milk. And I thought, oh, what like? In my head, I'm like, Huh, what do you mean? There's no more milk? And then, you know, that was my internal thought. And then outside, I was like, really? And I'm going kind of calmly, are you sure? And I'm thinking, of course, she's sure. She's like, five years old and she's been breastfeeding. I mean, you know, she's even older than that. 

Emma Pickett  1:08:31

That's interesting. I mean, I would just say some children will dry nurse, some children will go on beyond the end of milk, even for months, occasionally. So I wonder whether that was her way of saying, I'm also done. It was, was she, was she distressed about there not being milk, or was she pretty chill about it? 

Lara  1:08:48

You know, it's interesting. So she has still tried feeding since then, if that, you know what I mean, like she's she and I, I knew I could get the milk back. Like, I know. I mean, I know how to do all of this, right? Like this, to me, is just totally natural. And I thought this is so strange. Like, how did this happen? Did I have my eye off the ball that I actually blame myself a bit? I was like, and I thought, in general, in life, there was, like, a lot of things happening with kind of some family health stuff and some kind of big like work stuff and how stuff it I mean, there's just been a lot this has been I'm like, in a way, I'm like, no surprise 2024 was going to be the year it ended, because it's been a bit of a full year for some family stuff. But when it happened, it happened, it kind of happened by not happening. And probably better for me, like I That's why I seem surprised by it, because I had thought about it for a while, not like I was obsessing over it, but I definitely thought about it thinking, you know, this guy, I could have a real like dip. I could feel quite blue about things. I think I'm just a bit surprised. I don't feel relieved. Yes, and I don't feel over celebratory, either, if that makes sense, like I just feel, I feel like nature just knew what to do. Yeah, I think it was the right time. 

Emma Pickett  1:10:16

So she gradually reduced her feeding. Over time she fed less and less. Supply became less and less. But I think there's something going on in that moment which makes me wonder whether, emotionally, she was ready. It wasn't like, Oh, my God, tragedy. There's no milk. Ah, it was just kind of, I'm like, you know, by the way, there's no milk. 

Lara  1:10:33

Well, it's funny. So I made some notes, because I thought I should do this. And I mean, you know Emma, I know you. And I spoke about it when it first happened, and she said to me, because she was, she was, she had, there was sadness at points about it. And she said to me, and I wrote this down. I was like, Oh, she said to me, when my eldest was in the room, and she said, booby was my best friend forever. And I thought,

Emma Pickett  1:10:55

Oh, that's really special. So when, when exactly did she say that?

Lara  1:10:59

So she stopped breastfeeding. Like, What month was that? It was probably she was five and one month, so in, basically, in July, and she said that to me maybe two, three weeks later. And she did say she misses, she misses her booby. At another point, she said, I missed my booby, but she said, but don't worry, I'll have baby boobies. She meant that she'll breastfeed someday. And I just thought that was brilliant and so funny. She has what this is. What I love about this kind of experience is that she can articulate weaning probably better than a lot of babies and children can and so this is what I've experienced, like, very, very tuned in. Because obviously, I didn't have another baby, I was breastfeeding, so maybe in a weird way, I wasn't as tuned in for the others, or maybe I didn't think about it at the time. She's definitely wanting to latch on more. And by saying that, I mean, like, like, physically, just hold on to me. Have me hold her. Have me cuddle her. She started sucking her thumb about a day afterwards, two days afterwards, for the first time ever, she was waking up in the middle of the night wanting milk, like, like cow milk, as we call it, or water, but not just wanting it like a deep desire for it, even though she hadn't been doing much feeding the middle of night for a very long time, unless she was sick or something like that, she started to have conversations, and it's only been, like six weeks, seven weeks, but maybe a little bit more, but about how she was more scared of things. And she's not a kid that's scared off, and actually she's a pretty tough little cookie, but it was like it was more of her, I think, articulating this need of feeling like she wanted more protection and closeness in certain situations. And it wasn't things that were, what I would say are particularly scary. I know I'm putting my like, but it wasn't that things were like, really scary. Just going, I'm scared. She was saying it about, like, I'm scared of going over to that, you know, whatever, to that plant and smelling the flower, it was like it was that it was that kind of unusual, because she's like, she usually just marches into anywhere and, you know, like she did from the eight months old, you know. And then it was interesting, because I realized she felt like she had less protection in communicating that. But then I felt that way, so, like, I I then got covid of, you know, and I felt less protection because I didn't have that kind of support that I could give to her, even, you know, getting on the plane with her and the kids this summer to go back to the States, I didn't have that same thing where I'm always breastfeeding a child on the plane. Like it was this weird, like, maybe I felt it was a, it was a whole new world in the way she was feeling it differently. She wanted to drink milk with a straw the whole summer. Like she just, it was like, I've never seen a child want milk more than this child wanted milk but, and she always wanted it with a straw, which we don't even usually have, but I got, like, those silicone ones, and I just pictured it was like, this tack, you know, this kind of tactile that, yeah, she wanted me to sing her her favorite songs over and over and over, like, even when a few times middle of the night. Like, she just really needed that, and she wanted to go to sleep on top of me, which is, like, fine. Thankfully, she's a fairly light five year old, but it's interesting because I can see how much connection she wants and needs. And that's not because I think anything was wrong with it ending. I think it again. It was quite good in a way that it happened quite naturally and slowly, and she did not seem overly shocked by it or upset by it. But yeah, I think those were important things for me to write down, because I could have easily forgotten them in the you know, because even since some of those were happening, some of them have changed. But it was like, really, really clear to me how that weaning is just as big at any age, probably, and how it's so important for you. Us to realize how, yeah, how much of a difference it is for them. I mean, I know you know that, so not teach I'm not trying to tell you that, but like, I think, Hey,

Emma Pickett  1:15:09

listen, you're teaching me a lot. I think it's really good.

Lara  1:15:11

I think that, yeah, no, thank you. I think that the I didn't celebrate it with ice cream, yet, I don't know why. I mean, I've asked myself that question. And I kind of think it's because she is still almost going through some of the process of it, as am I. And so it's kind of, it's, you know, it's why I've thought about doing at Christmas time this year, having a book made for each of them, which would be all the same, because I think actually, it's nice for them to all see pictures of it, of like, different amazing breastfeeding pictures from like, different travels and just different, like, mundane moments in life and stuff for myself, for us to have as a family, but for the kids to have, for their future homes and stuff as well. And then to kind of celebrate it for all of us, but also for her to have, like, her own little individual one. And then I have to laugh the night before she started year one, because she's going into year one, she wanted to breastfeed. Wow. Okay, so for like, four weeks, she hasn't asked even once, and then, ta da, she wanted to breastfeed, because that's what she needed. So she did. There wasn't any milk. But, you know, I was cool with it. And that's kind of thing that you have to realize that there's not always the same black and white. Kind of, it starts and it stops, yeah, you know, yeah. 

Emma Pickett  1:16:30

Did she ask again after that? Or was it No, anytime? 

Lara  1:16:33

No. I was totally like, the next night, kind of thinking, we'll see and not even a mention of it. It was like a it was, you know, none of my kids have really had those things called security blankets or blankies or whatever. But, you know, perhaps that was kind of her security blanket that evening, yeah. And then she walked into year one, she was fine and totally confident. And yeah, there you are. 

Emma Pickett  1:17:00

That's really special. Well, gosh, there we are, Laura, what an amazing journey. And I can see that, you know, even though I was thinking it's a few months since she stopped, you know, it'll be closure, I can see you're still going through some stuff. You're absolutely working through some things still and and you've got some hormonal shifts probably still happening as well, because it takes a, you know, totally few weeks, months, for that to settle down. And goes without saying, You are awesome. You are amazing. I can just hear how beautifully careful you've been throughout this whole journey to to really care for your children and talk to them and communicate with them and give them that connection and just that flexibility you have is so special, just that kind of like, I'm not going to have hard and false rules about this. I'm just going to see what feels right in the moment. That is a that is a gift, that is a gift to your children, to to have that openness and that flexibility, and they are three very lucky little people. Thank you. And I know you said earlier that you haven't got to a place of feeling proud yet. And I And yeah, that's a funny word, isn't it? Because it's sort of if it's normal in every day, and you can't imagine doing it any other way. How can you feel proud of that? It's like feeling proud about putting your socks on. But you also live in a world where that's not common. Not many people have breastfed for 11 years. It's not common to have tandem fed. You know, multiple times. It's not common to have breastfed children going into year one. So, you know, let's be proud about the circumstances in which you've done it, if nothing else, yeah, and

Lara  1:18:23

I think, I think, though, you've got a good point there in terms of it, like, and that's not just because of longevity, but for anyone that's attempted it, even, I mean, I have some friends that it's like a few hours of trying, and it was really, you know, everyone has different things, right? Everyone has different stories. But, I mean, my husband did bring back, like, this lovely bouquet of flowers one day, and he's like, this is for you, you know, kind of when breastfeeding was over. But it was so interesting. I I didn't even know how to, like, articulate it at first that I didn't even tell him for a few days. I was like, because I kept thinking it would just maybe, maybe it was just going to shift back or come back. You know, there was, and so that's why it does still feel fresh. You're totally right. I mean, you can see it and hear it, and I hope I don't turn anyone off by being so emotive. But that's just, it is horrible. It's very harmonious.

Emma Pickett  1:19:11

Got this far. Good luck to them. Very much. Doubt they're going to be turned off at this point. 

Lara  1:19:18

I did a laugh, though, because I I, I called up Saint Cordelia, as we call her sometimes, but I called up Cordelia and I said, Okay, I need an exit interview. And she's, she said, What? Like, she didn't, she didn't know why I was calling her this, you know this, I'll call her about various different things. And I said, I think I need an exit interview because my breastfeeding journey has ended. And she was a bit like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it's Sado that you've done it this long, either. I mean, I just, you know, I have some friends that also breastfed for several years, and they they wanted to do, like, a little kind of, we were joking, calling it, you know, a milk party. Like a kind of a little celebration thing for me, once the kids are back in school. It was kind of right before the holidays that it happened. I think the timing of it was quite interesting, you know, in a way. But yeah, I think that it's, it's an amazing thing to get to breastfeed, and so I will always look better back at it finally, and I won't regret it a second of it. 

Emma Pickett  1:20:25

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your story today. It's been a real, real, real honor, and I know we're not actually very far away from each other geographically right now. We could have done this sitting in Queen's Park, but I don't think I've got the tech to do this, but I hope I get to meet you in person in the not so distant future. I love exit interviews. Are they one of my favorite things to do? I do them walking around Highgate wood, and I'm sure Claudia does them beautifully as well. I think, I think it's important to talk about breastfeeding, because I think you don't know. You don't notice it always. And anyone who's listened to your story, I know will have been really struck by by you and impressed by you, impressed in the lots of meanings of that word. Thank you for your time today.

Lara  1:21:05

Thank you and good luck to everyone that's listening. It's it's quite a journey, 

Emma Pickett  1:21:10

yeah, that is for sure. Thanks. 

Emma Pickett  1:21:16

Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett IBCLC and on Twitter @MakesMilk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist. And leaving a review would be great as well. Get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast. This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.