Natalie's story - a tandem feeding journey and feeding through aversion

This week, I’m talking to Dr Natalie Ashburner, a Bedford-based child and adolescent psychiatrist, about breastfeeding her three-year-old Ruben and seven-month-old Dylan.. Natalie describes night weaning Ruben during her second trimester using a gradual approach with a weaning book, flexible boundaries, and partner support, and explains how bedtime and sleeping arrangements shifted, including moving Ruben to a new dinosaur-themed room. After Dylan’s birth and a hospital stay for heart-rate monitoring, Ruben’s feeding increased and Natalie’s aversion intensified. She managed through distraction and limiting feeds, before settling back to one morning feed. Natalie continues to feed both boys and will be returning to work later this year. She is a member of MiLC (Medics in Lactation Community) and a peer supporter.

My picture book on how breastfeeding journeys end, The Story of Jessie’s Milkies, is available from Amazon here -  The Story of Jessie's Milkies. In the UK, you can also buy it from The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill, London. Other book shops and libraries can source a copy from Ingram Spark publishing.

You can also get 10% off my books on supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding at the Jessica Kingsley press website, by going to https://bit.ly/JKPbooks and using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

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

Resources mentioned - 

Facebook group for the peer support arm of MiLC (for breastfeeding doctors): https://www.facebook.com/groups/480916214609440/ 

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

Transcript

This transcript is AI generated.

[00:00:00] Emma Pickett: 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, too.

Join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing, and also sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly at that process of making milk, and of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk Thank you very much for joining me for today's episode.

Today I'm talking to Natalie. That's Dr. Natalie Ashburner from Bedford, and we're gonna be talking about her tandem feeding journey, her two little people, uh, with a bit of, a bit of aversion, um, thrown in. So that's a, a trigger warning for anyone who particularly struggles with aversion or perhaps that means you'll be more likely to want to listen.

And yeah, she's gonna share her personal story with a little bit of a professional angle as well. Uh, thank you very much for joining me today, Natalie. I really appreciate it. Whereabouts are you exactly? Are you in a city? Are you in a rural area? How are you, how are you suffering with the hot weather at the moment?

We're, we're currently talking in the middle of a heat wave. 

[00:01:22] Natalie: Yeah. Uh, thank you, Emma, for having me. Yeah. Not too bad. Um, I live just on the outside of, uh, Bedford, so I sort of get that sort of best of both worlds. I can go into the, to the town. I can easily get into London as well, but I also live in a little village that's

quite near the countryside, so that's ... I quite like it. 

[00:01:41] Emma Pickett: Oh, nice. Best of both worlds. And, and we can edit this bit out if I've got it wrong, but aren't, aren't you gonna have a really cool new Universal Studios theme park happening? You're, you're pulling a face. Is that not cool? 

[00:01:53] Natalie: I don't know. I mean, it really is very close to me.

Okay. Um, quite on my doorstep. Um, so I am a bit nervous about it, um, what it will mean. I'm not really sure what it will mean. 

[00:02:05] Emma Pickett: It probably could mean fantastic Airbnb prices. If you ever want to rent out bits of your house, you'll be making a fortune. 

[00:02:12] Natalie: Yeah, we did consider that. Um, traffic is already quite bad in Bedford, so I'm a bit nervous about that more than anything, to be honest with you.

[00:02:21] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Okay. No, sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up when we were already gonna be talking about- No, it's okay. 

[00:02:25] Natalie: Yeah, it might be amazing. 

[00:02:26] Emma Pickett: I think there's gonna be a lot of money invested in the area, and things like transport. And we've, we've lost all the breastfeeding audience, but never mind. The theme park audience has stayed with us.

Um, I think it will attract a lot of investment and, uh, there must be people that know that if there are problems to be solved, they have to be solved. And the council will absolutely be throwing everything at it as well. So I'm, I'm hoping that- 

[00:02:46] Natalie: Yeah, fingers crossed ... 

[00:02:47] Emma Pickett: you're gonna be telling me it's a fantastic thing in a few years' time.

Okay, so let's go back to breastfeeding if anyone's still listening. Um, you've got two little people, and a three-year-old and a seven-month-old, and you're breastfeeding both of them at the moment. 

[00:03:00] Natalie: I am, yeah. 

[00:03:00] Emma Pickett: Let's just start with the three-year-old 'cause I always love to hear what's a normal day for someone breastfeeding a three-year-old.

What's a typical 24 hours for three-year-old Ruben? 

[00:03:10] Natalie: For quite a long time now, he has just been having one feed in the morning. So he'll get up first thing in the morning, and it's like the first thing he wants to do. But, um, my husband has convinced him that he needs to do a wee first and put his clothes on.

So we get him changed, and then he comes running in, and he calls it booby, which, um, made me think when he started talking, "Oh, maybe I should have chosen a different, like, way of referring to it," because he now shouts booby all the time. 

[00:03:41] Emma Pickett: Booby's such a great word to say. I think there's a re- I think there's...

You know how like m- mama and papa or whatever are the words that kind of instinctively come out of little people's mouths, you know? Yeah. Um, I think it's like that with booby. I think booby's just a word that happens, doesn't it? It's quite an easy- 'Cause 

[00:03:56] Natalie: they 

[00:03:56] Emma Pickett: are, they are kind of booby-ish. I mean, you can see how it, how it, how it works.

[00:04:00] Natalie: Yeah, exactly. It's an easy word to say, so he learns it very early on. And obviously, it was a, an important need that he had that he could express. So yeah, booby. He comes running in, "I want booby. I want booby." And he has his feed, uh, in the morning. Having said that, the last few days, he's been asking me in the evening as well, and, um, we've just been on holiday, so we've been a bit disrupted in terms of our, like, routine and stuff, and I feel like that's when he might, you know, he'll try and ask at different times when, when that happens.

So he has had a feed in the evenings, like, the last couple of, of nights as well. 

[00:04:38] Emma Pickett: Okay. So that morning feed, I, I love the logic of he's got admin to do before he gets to come in. So, so you, you hear him kind of awake and desperately trying to get everything done and scrabbling around to get dressed. I mean, does he come in wearing a sock on his head, or is he, he's prop- properly dressed for the day?

[00:04:53] Natalie: Yeah, he usually comes in properly dressed for the day 

[00:04:56] Emma Pickett: Wow, at 3. That's pretty amazing 

[00:04:58] Natalie: Yeah, he's ... I mean, my husband helps him Oh, 

[00:05:01] Emma Pickett: I see. Okay He doesn't- Okay, that makes sense ... 

[00:05:03] Natalie: do it all himself 

[00:05:03] Emma Pickett: So your husband wakes up to go to him, and then he is sorting him all out, and then he comes through to say hello.

And you, are you- He, my 

[00:05:10] Natalie: husband co-sleeps with him usually 

[00:05:12] Emma Pickett: Ah, okay. 

[00:05:13] Natalie: Okay So they get up together. He goes to the toilet, he gets dressed, and then he runs in to me in the morning 

[00:05:18] Emma Pickett: Okay, 'cause I was gonna say, that is otherwise a three-year-old, the most amazing self-control plus ability to get dressed by himself.

I was beginning to think, you know, who's gonna pop on a pot of coffee for you or something. It's gonna ... 

[00:05:28] Natalie: It's Ruben To be fair to him, it's only his T-shirt that he can't do, the top half. He can do all the bottom half 

[00:05:35] Emma Pickett: Okay. And you are ... So you're co-sleeping with seven-month-old- Yeah ... um, Dylan. So does that mean that Ruben is pretty much sleeping through the night?

How does your husband experience nights with him? 

[00:05:47] Natalie: So my husband will often, unless he want, unless he's getting up very early, he'll go straight to bed with, um, with Ruben, if he's getting up early. If he's not, he'll try and start the night in bed with me, and then he'll invariably end up there. I would say Ruben probably sleeps through the night about once a week, if that.

We did have a star chart going for this, but that's kind of fallen by the wayside. But yeah, I would say he, he usually wakes at least once every night, and my husband said sometimes he wakes a lot of times in the night- Okay ... and he finds it frustrating, but yeah 

[00:06:24] Emma Pickett: Yeah. So this is a bit of an interesting story of how ending breastfeeding at night doesn't necessarily mean sleeping through 

[00:06:31] Natalie: No, it never has been.

And yeah, he's always been a waker. He's just always woken, and when he was much younger, you know, he woke sort of every 45 minutes for a really long time, so 

[00:06:46] Emma Pickett: Gosh, that is intense. Um- When's the last time you fed him at nighttime? 

[00:06:51] Natalie: So when I was pregnant, I made the decision to wean at nighttime at the beginning of my second trimester because I started to really get a lot of pain and a lot of aversion that I didn't wanna do it.

And I started to feel very uncomfortable because until that point, he had been sleeping on top of me at night 

[00:07:12] Emma Pickett: Okay. 

[00:07:13] Natalie: Gosh, that's tough 

[00:07:14] Emma Pickett: if you're pregnant. That is- 

[00:07:15] Natalie: Yeah ... very, very tough So I was pregnant, and I was lying there every night with hi- him lying on top of me as a, you know, two, two and a half-year-old, and he was latched on as well for the whole night.

And I was like, "I, I can't continue with this, and it's also now getting painful. I'm getting ... I don't like it. Um, I have to do something different". Yeah, so that's when I made the decision, and I tried to do it in a fairly gentle way. I, I probably didn't really follow the advice that, what things that you're supposed to do, to be honest with you 

[00:07:49] Emma Pickett: I don't think there is an what you're supposed to do.

I think, you know, doing that sounds a bit of a cliche, but you know him better than anybody. You know what situation you're in. Talk us through what you did. Explain what, so you're in your second trimester. Did you have a kind of epiphany of, "Okay, that's it. Absolutely can't do that tomorrow night"? How did, how did it kind of hit you?

[00:08:07] Natalie: No, it was more of a gradual thing. I had in my mind that I don't think I can continue this for the whole of pregnancy, and then when the baby's here as well, I can't have them both on top of me all night. So I had this in my mind. I wanted to do it earlier rather than later because I'd read about not wanting to make changes right before the baby is born, and they then associate it with that.

So that kind of pushed me on as well. I got a book, yeah, one of those books about weaning at night, and we read that for a couple of weeks. 

[00:08:42] Emma Pickett: Well, was it Sally Weans From Night Nursing? No, it- Or was it Nurses When the Sun Shines? 

[00:08:46] Natalie: It's called No More Milk. Okay It's just called No More Milk. But I changed it so I said No More Booby.

I just changed the words. Um, and so we read that for a couple of, of weeks, and then I told him that from kind of, to be honest, I said from midnight till 5:00 AM You're not going to have any booby anymore. And so I, when he woke up until that, until, like, midnight, I still went in, fed him, and, and left, and he was in his room.

Because normally then what would happen is we'd start him in his room, and then I would go to bed, and then he would come in with me when he woke up. 

[00:09:24] Emma Pickett: Okay. 

[00:09:25] Natalie: So this time when he came in with me, I would say, "Oh, remember that it, we're not having booby now. There's no booby." And I would kind of just, like, see what his response was.

So if he was really, really upset, really distraught, really crying, I would give him booby and he would have it. 

[00:09:45] Emma Pickett: Okay. So did you kind of pretend it wasn't midnight? How did you f- or did you not even need, you didn't even do that, you just kind of- 

[00:09:52] Natalie: No, I would just say to him, um, yeah, it's, it's remember it's, it's no booby.

And then d- if he cried and he was really upset, I would say, "Okay, you can have it." And that's why I say I don't think it's how you're meant to do it. 

[00:10:06] Emma Pickett: Hey, w- it's, you know what? Um, everyone's approach is different, and, and I mean, yes, on the s- on the surface this sounds like a scenario where he's learning that that boundary means zip.

I'm gonna ch- challenge you here a little bit. Yeah. But also, he's learning that if I am very distressed, milk is always gonna be available. And, you know, that, obv- obviously on, on the face of it, that sounds like, you know, you're not holding a boundary. But also, it clearly worked 'cause this is where you are today, and he's not breastfeeding, so- 

[00:10:34] Natalie: Yeah

[00:10:34] Emma Pickett: whatever you did must have worked. I'm just really curious as to how you got to the place where there was acceptance. 

[00:10:40] Natalie: Because some nights he wasn't that upset, so he would, he, some nights he would be like, "Oh, okay then." Or he would be a little bit upset, and then I would say, "You know, I'll give you a cuddle", and then he would settle down and he'd go to sleep.

But when it was to the point of him- Absolutely distraught, screaming. You know, I, I personally, I can't, like, tolerate that. 

[00:11:05] Emma Pickett: Of course, yeah. 

[00:11:05] Natalie: So if he was really, really, really too distressed and upset, I would just say, "That's okay. You can, you can have it tonight." And then what happened was just gradually his distress just got less.

[00:11:19] Emma Pickett: Okay. 

[00:11:19] Natalie: Because it was, it wasn't every time anyway. It was, you know, sometimes he was fine, and he, and he accepted it, and he went. And I think personally, and I know this thing about having boundaries, and they're not gonna ... You know, they learn that it's not respected. But I also think of it of the time of sometimes I need more and sometimes I need less.

That's- 

[00:11:40] Emma Pickett: Yeah ... 

[00:11:40] Natalie: that's everyone as a person. Sometimes I need a cuddle. Sometimes I'm fine, and I don't need a cuddle, you know? Because we're not always in the same emotional state. 

[00:11:50] Emma Pickett: Yeah, 

[00:11:50] Natalie: yeah. And we don't always need the same thing of people. So if someone says, "Oh, actually, you can't have that today," and you're like, "Yeah, it's all right.

That's fine. I'm, I'm all right tonight. I think I can manage." But actually some nights that's the thing that I really, really need. That's how I saw it. So I was like, actually, there's some times where he needs it more, but he's learning that he can manage without it, and that was getting more and more. So there were more nights that he then was okay, and he didn't need it, and I didn't give it to him.

[00:12:21] Emma Pickett: So that time when he comes in, and obviously if he's very distressed You're following your instincts, you're feeding him. Would that still then be the case throughout that period? He would ... If he was distressed again a couple of hours later, he's feeding again, or was it really only that first feed where there was a particular issue?

[00:12:37] Natalie: As I remember it, I, I feel like he would just have that feed and then he was actually okay the rest of the times. I don't remember having, like, multiple situations where he would then be upset. I think he would then settle. And obviously I kept trying to reinforce it then during the daytime. Now, remember we don't, we don't do booby at nighttime anymore.

And yeah, that's just the way that worked for us, and he just gradually had less and 

[00:13:02] Emma Pickett: less. And it clearly worked. I mean, listen, I don't want to give the impression that I'm thinking, you know, waggle, waggle finger, "What did you do, Natalie? This is outrageous." I mean, I, and I don't want you even to say, "I'm not doing it the way you're not supposed to do it", 'cause actually you clearly knew his personality, you knew what was right for him, you listened to your instincts, you developed a method that worked, and it was successful.

So no one can ever claim there's a problem there. Um, if it, if his, he had escalated and if it, days had gone by and it was getting more and more frequent, or if he was pretending to cry, in inverted commas, to try and get a feed, I'm sure you would've adapted and done something different. But, but what you did absolutely worked.

That worked for you. 

[00:13:39] Natalie: Yeah, definitely. And it worked within just a few weeks, and then he wasn't feeding in the nighttime. 

[00:13:44] Emma Pickett: Okay. So, so obviously we've got two separate things here. We've got the him feeding, but w- then we've also got him lying on you. Was that something you had to kind of wean separately?

How did that work? 

[00:13:54] Natalie: Yeah, so then he was li- then he was still coming into our bed and sleeping with us until the baby was born, actually. My husband started taking over doing the bedtimes because we wanted ... I was doing that every bedtime before that, and he was having booby. We swapped, so my husband was doing more of the bedtime, so he got used to that.

And he obviously knew if my husband's doing it, he's not having booby. So that just went for that reason. And yeah, but he was still coming into our bed at night. And then when Dylan was born, initially we started having the two of them in the bed With us, and, but this was just, that was not really gonna work.

What we did do, which again, was a thing that I know you're not supposed to do, um, which was that we then very shortly after Dylan was born, we decided to redecorate one of our bedrooms and move Ruben in there. I had planned that I would do this, like, give it time, like maybe six months after Dylan was born so that there wasn't lots of changes at once.

But my husband was like, he didn't wanna go and co-sleep with Ruben in this tiny little bed in, in his room as it was then. So we decided that we'll give him this new room, and we'll try and encourage him to sleep in this big, new double bed that he has, and that completely worked, and he absolutely loves it.

To be honest, I think that was actually the best thing that I've done. 

[00:15:26] Emma Pickett: Yeah, I don't, I don't think that's a problem, actually. I mean, the whole thing about, you know, what are you supposed to do business, I mean, first, first of all, there's very little information out there about what tandem feeding looks like anyway, so, um- Yeah

uh, and the information that does exist is certainly not gonna be based on reams of hard evidence 'cause there aren't a lot of research studies. And actually, sometimes when a new baby comes, so older nurslings kind of get that life's different, you know? Yeah. To say to him logically, "Oh, you know, I think baby Dylan's waking you up.

Let's get you your own room," that makes perfect sense. 

[00:15:55] Natalie: Yeah, and obviously, so we redecorated this room. It's all dinosaur themed, which was what he was absolutely obsessed with at the time, and he, he loved it. And what it also did was it gave him his own space, whereas before he was in, like, a s- very small bedroom.

He didn't have a lot. You know, you wouldn't go ... He wouldn't go there to play. And obviously, part of this is also growing up because he is three now as well. But he now goes to his room and plays independently for even s- hours sometimes. He loves that room, and it's his space, and he has all his toys in there, and that's really made a big difference, I think, to our whole family for him having that space.

And also, even sometimes he's ... when he's upset, he says, "I'm going to go and sit in my room," and he goes. Like, it's his space- Yeah ... that he kind of- Blessed ... yeah, he's one of those people that, you know, he ... sometimes he needs a ... He takes himself on a timeout, you know. He says, "I need a break from you." Then he goes off to his room, and he sits there quite happily.

So, um, yeah, he loves his room. So he was quite happy to move into that bed, and then my husband will go into him instead, which we did have to tell him because he, he started off coming into us in the nighttime. When he woke up and then we said, "No, now you're not gonna come into the bed, you're gonna stay there, but Daddy can come to you".

And again, he's, he's never had sort of an issue with that. It's just been kind of reminding him, and he would, he would go back. 

[00:17:29] Emma Pickett: Okay. Okay. Like, so there are kind of two things that strike me from this description of how things transitioned, uh, for Ruben. I think, like, I think the first one is not all partners are happy to co-sleep and get woken up through the night, and it, you know, it's, it's lovely to hear that, you know, that your, your husband obviously is, is up for that, and I don't mean to, you know, suggest that non-breastfeeding parents or dads are evil beings who won't wanna do that.

But not every, not every dad or non-breastfeeding parent would be prepared to do that, so that, um, that's, that's really special, and it sounds as though, you know, Ruben's always had somebody there to meet his needs. He's never been asked to, to handle things on his own and, and, you know, be isolated. I guess the other thing that strikes me is that you talked about being in pain.

You talked about physical discomfort of feeding, but yet it took you weeks to, to night wean him. That can't have been an easy time, those, those weeks. Were you s- were you working at that point while you're still night weaning him? 

[00:18:23] Natalie: Yeah. Yeah, I was working, yeah. Um, yeah. I, yeah, it was, it was really painful.

It was, it was hard and, um, I think- I leaned a lot on other people that I knew who were breastfeeding because, um ... So I'm part of the Medics Lactation Community. So, um, one of the great things about them is that you just have this, like, network on your phone of other women who are breastfeeding, who have often been in your situation as well.

And sometimes I would just send them

a rant um, about it and say, "You know, it's really hard. Um, it's really painful." And, and people would just reply and say, "Yeah, I, I get it. I've been there. It's awful." And you know, I tried some of their techniques as well. You know, they would say, "Have you tried counting down from, from 10?" Or, you know, limiting it and, and things like that, which I, which I did try.

But it was, it was hard. Um, and I continued to have a lot of

aversion through the first few months of Dylan's life as well. 

[00:19:32] Emma Pickett: Okay. When you were feeding Ruben? 

[00:19:34] Natalie: When I was feeding Ruben, yeah. 

[00:19:36] Emma Pickett: Okay. That, that's really interesting. I'd like to ... Let's talk more, a bit more about that in a minute 'cause I think that's, that's something we don't often hear about. Um, before we do that, tell us a bit more about the Medics in Lactation Community.

So this is M-I-L-C. Am I saying it right? Yeah. And we've had a few other members who've been guests on the podcast as well. I'm, uh ... Sounds like I'm working through all of you, but, um, so to join that group, you're a doctor in the UK. Is that right? 

[00:19:58] Natalie: Yeah. To join the group, you just have to be a doctor in the UK who is breastfeeding or has breastfed.

[00:20:04] Emma Pickett: And it's a Facebook peer support group. It, you also do advocacy stuff and education. Give us, give us the spiel. If someone hasn't heard about MILC, what are you doing? 

[00:20:13] Natalie: Yeah. So it's got kind of two strands now. One is the peer support, which is essentially a Facebook group of support, um, where, you know, doctors who are breastfeeding can post for advice, and others will respond to them.

And then the other arm of it is- Sort of education and networking. So anyone who's a, um, doctor or can join that. I think other health professionals as well are on there for just networking and learning more about breastfeeding. We're just trying to get more information out there about breastfeeding, um, to health professionals so that the right messages are being, you know, given and the right support is being given, um, to people who are breastfeeding.

So yeah, that's the sort of newer arm of it as well. And then obviously we have a group of the sort of admins and the moderators, um, who are ... So I'm like a peer supporter, and then we have some of the leads who, um, you know, th- there's a wide range of kind of like skills and knowledge in there. Obviously, my background is being a psychiatrist, which has nothing to do with breastfeeding.

Um, but, um, you know, there are other people who, you know, are m- much more specialist who ... You had, like, Naomi down here, um, uh, a while ago, didn't you? And she sort of, she has a, um, is an IBCLC with an interest, a GP as well with an interest in, in breastfeeding. And we have other people who are, like, ENT specialists, so obviously, you know, tongue-tie and things like that.

They know about pediatricians who are experts in kind of difficulty with, um, you know, growth and weight and things like that. So yeah, it, there's so much kind of like knowledge and skills on there. Um, mine mainly comes from my own experience and, like, local ... 'cause I also do some local volunteering in breastfeeding groups, um, which again, is just peer support, and that's where I've done my training, um, with the infant feeding team kind of locally.

[00:22:15] Emma Pickett: Yeah. And, and I think you, you say that your work isn't connected to breastfeeding, but actually I think anyone who spends two seconds thinking about it can see what an enormous value there is for a psychiatrist who understands breastfeeding. Because obviously there are big populations of people postnatally having issues with their mental health and may need help from psychiatry and- What a gift it is to walk into a room with you and know that you get it, and you get why breastfeeding is important, and you will care about someone's medication, and you will answer questions about breastfeeding and not, you know, and not see breastfeeding as the problem, in inverted commas, or something that needs to end or s- you know- Yeah

co-sleeping is the bad guy. I mean, y- you know, that is just such a gift for somebody. Are you NHS based? What kind of work do you do? 

[00:22:57] Natalie: Uh, yeah, NHS, and I'm, I'm actually a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Um, so I would say, yeah, it, it absolutely all fits in together. And, um, I think since actually breastfeeding myself, I ask about it more as well, that I maybe wouldn't have asked before.

Um, because we ask a lot, you know, par- especially in, in child and adolescent psychiatry, we focus a lot on developmental history. So we're asking people a lot about births, deliveries, pregnancies, the postnatal period. And I realized that I didn't really ask a lot about feeding unless they said ... You know, I would say, "Did you have any problems, you know, after delivery?

How has baby got?" Uh, and if they told me about that, I would kind of, you know, obviously listen, but I didn't tend to specifically ask, you know, "Did you breastfeed? Um, did you formula feed?" And often, you know, that, um, there's a whole story there. If you ask somebody, "How did you feed your baby?" You know, there's, there's a lot of information there.

And, um Yeah, I'm not saying that it is, you know, explicitly linked however you choose to feed your baby to, you know, the kind of problems that I see in children later on. But I think it's important, um, a lot of the time it is important to the family, and, you know, if you're asking a parent that will often be part of a narrative of that child, their life.

You know, it's part of their history, it's part of their story. And a lot of the time I see the same themes that will, that will come up in terms of like difficulties that have been had and things later on. And it's also about how that person makes sense of it and how they link it together and, you know, so it may or may not be related, but often it does, it does come up.

So yeah, I think I ask about it a lot more now as well, and I do challenge a lot more some of the views that, you know, traditionally that health professionals have had about breastfeeding and co-sleeping because I know, you know, if I had brought my son now, my three-year-old to, um, you know, child and adolescent mental health services and I said I was still breastfeeding him, I know there probably would be some comments about that and people might think that this was the reason why he was having whatever problems he was having or this is not normal, you know.

And I've heard people say that about co-sleeping as well, you know, "Oh, this, this child sleeps in, uh, with their mother." And a lot of the time the children that I work with, if they have neurodevelopmental disorders, for example, um, you know, their developmental age is often a lot younger than their kinda chronological age.

So yes, you might have, you know, a 10-year-old who's co-sleeping with their mother, but that 10-year-old might developmentally have the brain more of an 18-month-old or, or a two-year-old. And in which case you're like, well, that really is completely normal and, uh, you know, understandable. Um, and of course, I mean, to be honest, even a, a 10-year-old is, it's understandable, but I think even more so in that, in that case that you're like, well, you know, you need to, you need to really see that this is all just part of, you know, normal attachment and development and, you know, this is not part of the problem.

[00:26:13] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Yeah. Three cheers for all that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, so just coming back to your pregnancy and thinking about when you were pregnant with Dylan and you were still feeding Ruben. So you've gone through the night weaning, um, and gradually, gradually he asked less and less, he was less bothered, he was more accepting.

There was a point where he was waking up, presumably coming through, not feeding at all, and that was the next day, and the next day, and the next day. 

[00:26:36] Natalie: Yeah. 

[00:26:36] Emma Pickett: And then you got to 5:00 AM and you did the morning feed. 

[00:26:40] Natalie: Yeah. 

[00:26:40] Emma Pickett: And you said that you were obviously still struggling with pain, physical pain, aversion.

In those moments when you're still feeding and you're having a rough time, what's kind of running through your head? Did you have any strategies that made a difference? Anything that helped you? 

[00:26:53] Natalie: Mainly distraction. I actually found just limiting the feeds as I did was probably the best thing because what I found in pregnancy with the pain is that once he was on and he was feeding, it kind of got a bit better as it went on.

So I didn't... Although actually I had tried the things of, like, doing the countdown and limiting the length of the feeds, actually it was limiting the number of the feeds that helped me more because it really was the latching that was the most painful part, and then I actually didn't mind too much after that.

So if I could get through that bit with, you know, to be honest, just look at my phone or something, distract myself through that moment, things did get easier. But cutting down the feeds was the thing that helped me more, um, rather than kind of limiting lengths of feeds, things like that. 

[00:27:47] Emma Pickett: Okay

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So your pregnancy continues. You're doing still that morning feed, still a bedtime feed until your husband starts taking over bedtime. Yeah. And you give birth to Dylan, and you said the aversion didn't get any better, which for some people is, is devastating news because lots of people assume that when the newborn comes, that aversion was pregnancy related, the big flood of oxytocin will remove it all.

But that wasn't what happened. Describe for us how that was those first few weeks. 

[00:30:23] Natalie: So the pain did get better. So the pain got better towards the end of the pregnancy, actually third trimester a lot better. But the aversion got worse, I would say, once Dylan was born. When Ruben latched on, when the three-year-old latched on, I had this overwhelming urge of, "Get off me.

I don't want you to touch me. Get off me. I don't like it". And this is where limiting the length of the feeds really helped me. And I, the poor, poor guy, sometimes I was like, "Three, two, one, off". You know? 

[00:30:58] Emma Pickett: Yeah. 

[00:30:58] Natalie: I could not, I could not tolerate it. I had this overwhelming just urge for him not to feed, and I never had it with Dylan How I made sense of it and how I, you know, sort of continue to see it, is that it's a almost like an evolutionary thing to preserve my milk for the baby, that my body is saying, like, 'We need the, we need to save the milk, make sure that the baby gets enough milk'.

And so in my head I was like, that's, that's the reason why. It's, it's a protective thing. Because you feel awful, you feel so guilty, you feel like a horrible person. Like, why am I having this awful feeling every time this happens? And I feel so sorry for him that he, he really loves and wants this so much, and I'm having such a horrible feeling.

But hanging onto that, that it's, you know, some kind of biological thing that seems ... That I think the function of it is to, to preserve the milk for, for the younger one, was really what helped me get through it. And I'm, 

[00:31:58] Emma Pickett: and I'm gonna s- say something that c- could, might be difficult to hear, but obviously you're aware that lots of people do tandem feed- 

[00:32:04] Natalie: Yeah

[00:32:04] Emma Pickett: happily, and even with toddlers freed- feeding quite frequently in the day alongside a newborn. Did you have a history of struggling with milk supply with, with Ruben first time round? I'm just trying to work what, work out what might be behind that, that feeling. If that ... Um, I sound like I'm kind of saying, "Oh, no, the, the thing you told yourself doesn't make any sense, Natalie."

And this is clearly not what psychiatrists are doing in their appointments with people. Um, that's not logical, Natalie. No, I- Tandem feeding is about supply and demand. What are you on about? 

[00:32:30] Natalie: And you know what? That is absolutely, that's absolutely fine. Like, I think it's just, it's what you need to get- 

[00:32:36] Emma Pickett: Exactly

yeah ... which is why I'm being awful and saying I don't understand the thing you were telling yourself. Yeah. 'Cause you know as a lac- as a peer supporter- 

[00:32:42] Natalie: Of course ... you, you know that that 

[00:32:43] Emma Pickett: doesn't necessarily 

[00:32:43] Natalie: fit 

[00:32:43] Emma Pickett: Yeah, it, it's my supply. You're gonna make 

[00:32:44] Natalie: enough for them both. I never had any problems. I've

With Ruben, I never had any issues at all. In fact, both of their feeding journeys have been practically identical. They latched on day one, went, "Yep, we know how to do this." And that was it, and we were away. Um, I never had, I always made, I, uh, in, in terms of my supply, I always think I've just, I've just made enough.

I actually said this to my friend the other day. I've always had a kind of just blind faith in my supply. Just knew that, you know, it was always there, and I, I never f- I never worried. I never paid too much attention to, you know, if he was feeding a bit more and then go, "Oh, is it because my supply's dropped," or, you know, "I did this.

Is, has my supply..." You know, I never worried about it. I just knew it was always there, and it would always, you know, recover if it did drop for a bit. And I, I never tracked feeds or paid attention to things like that. So I don't know where that came from. I, because I never did have a problem with it, but I did just have this, this overwhelming feeling when he fed, and he wanted to feed all the time when- Okay

when Dylan was first born. So there was something 

[00:33:56] Emma Pickett: on a deep instinctive level, and obviously you're trying to make sense of it, and the, and the business about, you know, being protective of Dylan's milk supply. You know, I c- I can absolutely see why someone ends up in that space, and I, you know, and I'm, as I said, I'm being really cheeky kind of poking you about it and trying to get, to work out what's going on behind it.

Despite that, despite the fact that you were going, "Three, two, one, off", on occasion- Yeah ... you never wanted to end breastfeeding entirely. What, what's going through your mind at the... Why did you not wean despite those difficulties? 

[00:34:23] Natalie: On a couple of occasions I was like, "Maybe I will, because I can't do this every day."

And like, uh, because I, my husband would say, "Why don't you stop feeding Ruben?" And I would say, "Because I don't want to end on a, on a negative note." And I, I don't know if that ... Yeah, I don't know. It just, I, I don't think I would be happy with that kind of ending of it being like, well, you know, it's, it's kind of didn't feel right.

It didn't, it felt like it would be a really negative kind of way to end things, and it would be unhappy for us both. And he was like, "Well, you're not happy now." And I was like- Yeah ... "I understand that. I wasn't happy, but it was once a day." Well, we got it back to once a day. It, it did go up quite a lot in those first couple of weeks, and then the novelty wore off, and it came back down to once a day.

But it did go away, so this was maybe the first, like, three, four months, but I don't have that same feeling with, with Ruben anymore. 

[00:35:25] Emma Pickett: Okay. You're a patient person, Natalie. That is what I'm learning. Your we- despite the fact you're in physical pain, your night weaning takes weeks. Despite the fact you're absolutely at, at your wit's end, you, you just waited to see what would happen.

Are you a patient person in other areas of your life? Is that ... Would that be a word people use to describe you? 

[00:35:44] Natalie: Yeah, I think so. When I, I talk about my parenting style, um, as being, like, the path of least resistance a lot of the time. So usually, and my solution to things is, "Let's see what happens." You know, I, I very rarely make big decisions that really take things one way, you know?

I tend to say, "Let's wait and see what happens here," and, uh, and I quite like things just being, being natural and going as they go. I think that's why I'm a psychiatrist as well, you know. You can see now how awful will I be in emergency. We've gotta make a- ... the right decision right now. No, I'm sure 

[00:36:23] Emma Pickett: you'd be fine.

When you went through medical school, you presumably were doing all 

[00:36:27] Natalie: that kind of stuff. No, that is why I like psychiatry because we think about all our options, and we weigh them all up, and we spend a lot of time thinking about what's gonna happen and thinking about the different options, and I think that's what I do.

And because I spend so long thinking, often the problem kind of resolves itself in that time- Yeah ... um, one way or the other, and that, that's kind of, yeah, what's, what's happened. And, and like I say with my parenting, so even with falling pregnant with Ruben, I would have li- uh, sorry, Dylan, I would have liked to have a second child earlier, but I wanted- I, I didn't want to wean to bring my periods back.

They didn't come back until I was, like, 21 months postpartum, and then luckily fell pregnant fairly quickly, like, within five months after that. But I, again, I just didn't want to do something to really... You know, I wanted to see what happens and, and make that natural kind of thing. And, and I also felt that, um, I, I read sort of the La Leche League, um, article where it says about how this is your baby telling you they're not ready for a sibling, and I took that on board as well, uh, which is written there, and I thought, "Yeah, it's, it's him.

He's not ready. He needs me too much right now." And then, you know, obviously I did fall pregnant when I did, and I kind of feel that now. Like, if he, he still needs me, he needs... He's still asking. He wants it, you know? I ha- I've done, what's it, don't offer, don't refuse- Mm-hmm ... since he was about 12 months. 

[00:37:56] Emma Pickett: Yeah.

[00:37:57] Natalie: He's been, he's- I 

[00:37:58] Emma Pickett: mean ... he's been a very lucky little bloke. I mean, apart from the nudging at night during pregnancy, and even then, as I said, as we've listened to it, you know, he's very much the one who controls the, the bottom line. Um, I'm just trying to imagine what those first two weeks must've been like after you'd had Dylan, when Ruben was feeding very frequently, and you were in pain or slightly less in pain actually, 'cause you said the pain got easier.

But you're experiencing aversion every time Ruben latches on, and you've just had a newborn, and you're two weeks postpartum. I mean, what are your memories of, of feeding Ruben in that period of time? 

[00:38:32] Natalie: It was really tough. And, and I would say, sort of, I said, like, two weeks, but I was actually in hospital for a week with Dylan.

Dylan was in hospital because they found an abnormality with his heart, so Ruben went 10 days away from me in that time. He was staying at his grandparents', and it was really hard. We made the decision not to bring him to visit initially, and then after a week we were like, "It's been a week now. We miss him."

We brought him to the hospital. It wasn't a great decision. He was absolutely distraught. He cried the whole night. 

[00:39:10] Emma Pickett: Okay. Tell us a bit more about how you made that decision. So, um, first of all, I'm really sorry to hear about, um, Dylan's heart situation. Is that all okay now? Is he...? 

[00:39:20] Natalie: Yeah. They said this is just, uh, just a baby thing, just a newborn thing.

They said his heart kept dropping really, really low, his heart rate, so they just had... They kept monitoring him. He's had all the tests done. They sent it off to Great Ormond Street, everything, and at the end they, it just sort of came back up by itself, and they went, "Yeah, it's fine. Um, no follow-up, nothing Okay.

[00:39:42] Emma Pickett: I'm glad that was the answer 

[00:39:43] Natalie: I know, but in some ways you're like, "What? What?" You know? 

[00:39:48] Emma Pickett: So you're in hos- you're in hospital, obviously s- a, a scary time for you 'cause you don't- Yeah ... know how things are gonna end out- end up with, with Dylan. Um, and you make the d- decision. You call... Is it your parents or, or your husband's parents?

You- 

[00:40:00] Natalie: Yeah, my husband's parents 

[00:40:01] Emma Pickett: You call your husband's parents, say, "Okay, it's been a week. Bring Ruben in." And you say it went really badly. Some people are thinking about this, about how are they going to get their child to come and visit them in hospital. What do they do? I was speaking to someone the other day in Croatia.

Apparently in Croatia it's really common to be in hospital for an extended period of time, and she was worried about her, her oldest, her older nursing. Talk us through what happened. You say to them, "Come into the hospital"- He arrives. What happened? 

[00:40:26] Natalie: Yeah, so he came in. He was fine when he was there. He came and said hello to the baby.

I mean, no one was holding the baby because he was under one of those monitors anyway. Um, so he came and, yeah, he had a look. He had some cuddles, you know, said hello, saw the baby. He wasn't there for long, and then my husband took him home, and he cried all night. He sobbed all night, and then we were still there for another, like, three days after that.

[00:40:52] Emma Pickett: Okay. And he's with your husband? 

[00:40:54] Natalie: He was only for that night with my husband, then he went back to grandparents because we thought, again, that maybe going back home and no one being there might have been harder and worse for him. 

[00:41:06] Emma Pickett: Okay. 

[00:41:07] Natalie: And being at grandparents', he was fine. But that's the thing, when he was at his grandparents', apparently, he was an absolute angel the whole time.

He was happy. He was smiley. He was fine. He very rarely maybe mentioned, you know, Mommy, and then they said, "Oh, you know, she's in the hospital having baby," and then he was, he was fine. He didn't get upset. But as soon as we got home, we knew, no, this has really affected him. He was really, really upset. He was, you know, loads of tantrums, and obviously as well, we've just brought this new baby home as well.

[00:41:40] Emma Pickett: Yeah. And that's a long period of time to be separated, isn't it? So he's what, two and a half at this point, and, you know, 10 days without you is a long time, obviously not your choice. Um- 

[00:41:49] Natalie: Yeah ... 

[00:41:50] Emma Pickett: so that's a lot of emotion flying around. I mean, you've, you're waiting to find out, presumably you hadn't yet had test results back on, on what's going on with Dylan's heart.

You've- 

[00:41:58] Natalie: Yeah ... 

[00:41:58] Emma Pickett: you've got all the emotions with Ruben a- and you've got the feeding journey being difficult. Crikey, that's a heck of a lot for anyone to contend with. 

[00:42:06] Natalie: Yeah. 

[00:42:07] Emma Pickett: So you let Ruben feed kind of responsively in that moment 'cause that felt like what you needed to do to help him heal? 

[00:42:13] Natalie: Exactly, yeah.

It felt, you know, and obviously he saw me feeding Dylan. He was upset, and he was asking for it, and so I w- I let him for a couple of weeks, and then I sent another message to my friend saying, you know, "How long is this gonna go on for? I don't, I can't deal with this." And, and by this point, obviously, like you say, I was postpartum as well.

I'd had a C-section, um, an emergency C-section. I said, "I don't think I can have- You know, three out of four people depending on me for their nourishment. Ruben, the older one, he'd stopped, like eating a lot. Okay. So he was like replacing his meals with it, and I was like, "I physically cannot eat and drink enough to keep everyone alive here."

And so maybe there you might have found, Emma, the reason for my aversion. Maybe that's behind it all, Dylan being unwell, having to feed him and also feed Ruben. 

[00:43:14] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Your body's saying, "Whoa, hang on. I've got a limit here, and I need to look after myself." So maybe it's not, the aversion's not just about protecting Dylan's milk supply, it's also your body saying- Yeah

"Help. Um- Yeah ... I've 

[00:43:27] Natalie: got 

[00:43:27] Emma Pickett: a 

[00:43:28] Natalie: limit here." It could have been for me as well. You know, I did have some low iron as well when I was discharged, which I know, you know, is really common. But yeah, I think, I think, you know, I was exhausted. It was, it was really tiring, you know, emotionally and physically on my body, and it was really tough those first few weeks.

But my friends reassured me that in their cases, their older ones got less interested as time went on, and the same happened for Ruben. He got less interested. He went back to eating. 

[00:44:03] Emma Pickett: Okay. 

[00:44:03] Natalie: Um, and he fed less, and I didn't particularly say, "You need to stop now." I do on occasion say, "I don't fancy it," or, you know, "Distraction, let's do something else."

I did do that sometimes, but I never explicitly said to him, "No, you're not having it anymore." 

[00:44:20] Emma Pickett: Okay. Okay. So apart from the sort of three, two, one, okay, time to get off, other than that, it was still very much Ruben-led, and, and you were still going down the don't offer, don't refuse route. Um, which is kind of amazing when you think all the things that you were dealing with and going through.

So he gradually went back to doing just one feed a day. 

[00:44:39] Natalie: Yeah. 

[00:44:39] Emma Pickett: And did your husband still do bedtimes? Is that why he doesn't have a feed at bedtime? 

[00:44:43] Natalie: Yeah. To be honest, again, I read, oh, you know, Mum should still keep doing bed- some bedtimes, 'cause, you know, you don't want to just be doing baby all the time and then, um, you know, the older one should still get some time with you and all of that.

Um, but we just found with Ruben, he needs routine, and he needs the same thing every day. When we would switch it up, it never went well, you know. It would take ages to get him to bed. It was, he was unsettled. He, he likes to know the routine is the same every time. So he will say to me now, "Mummy do bath.

Daddy do bed." And that's what, that's what we do. So I have, you know, I, and I do have time, and I'm, I tr-

I make time for him at other times. And Dylan, thankfully, is a pretty chill baby, to be honest with you. Um, and he takes a bottle. So that also has meant that I've been able to make time at other times to be with Ruben. You know, if there's a birthday party, I'll take him. I take him to his football practice, you know, without Dylan.

Um, so he still gets some one-on-one time with me as well, but it's just not the evening. 

[00:45:53] Emma Pickett: Okay And then you mentioned that the aversion gradually got easier. Yeah. Was that something that happened really, really slowly? Did you kind of, did you, do you remember a day when you were like, "Whoa, hang on. I'm not feeling aversion anymore"?

[00:46:05] Natalie: Yeah, I think it is just a gradual thing. And I did the other, you know, maybe a month or so ago think, "Yeah, I don't really feel that way anymore. I don't have that intense get off me." I mean, sometimes now because sometimes his latch is a bit, like his teeth are digging in and I'm like, "Dude, can you like readjust a little bit?"

'Cause you know. But it's not that feeling that I had. And the only time now I get annoyed is if I say, "Okay, that's enough, Ruben," and he doesn't stop. I don't like that because I'm trying to teach him, you know, about consent and other people's bodies, and if somebody says, "I don't like that," you need to stop what it is that you're doing, even when it's booby, you know?

And I think that's why I think feeding older children is one, that's one of the really like positive things about it as well, is that it's a really early lesson in consent, isn't it? 

[00:46:55] Emma Pickett: Yeah. You're speaking my language, Natalie. I've literally, in the last few weeks, recorded a video about this that I'll be putting on my Instagram.

I think it is so important that people understand what a gift that is. It's, it, as you say, it's the first lesson in intimacy. It's the first lesson about body autonomy and consent. And so many people are, you know, really wanting to make sure that their children have a strong sense of their bodies and m- you know, not letting them be mauled by Great Aunt Nelly who wants to have a kiss.

And, "No, no, no, my child will only be touched by people when they've consented," but yet they're not modeling that themselves in their own breastfeeding relationship. And, and modeling is such an important way for people to learn. Um, yeah, so couldn't, couldn't agree more. 

[00:47:34] Natalie: Yeah. 

[00:47:35] Emma Pickett: So you're gonna just let him choose when the ending comes?

You're not somebody who has a goal in mind when it comes to his, his breastfeeding journey. 

[00:47:42] Natalie: I mean, my original goal was six months, so 

[00:47:47] Emma Pickett: I think you smashed that 

[00:47:49] Natalie: Yeah, we've come a long way since then. I never thought I'd be feeding now, and I think that's probably what most people would say to you as well.

And you know, my friends who have fed for long periods of time as well, they said, "Yeah, we just sort of..." I, I mean, again, it's just the, the lazy option, the non-intervention option, isn't it? Because if you're gonna stop, you're gonna have to do something to stop, you know. With Ruben, I, I don't know. I, I assume like, you know, one day he will, he will not ask anymore.

I think he's had maybe one or two days where he hasn't come in that, for that morning feed. Uh, but most of the time he does. But, you know, one day he won't. 

[00:48:32] Emma Pickett: Yeah. That is exactly how it will be, and then he, then he will for the next two days, then he won't, and then he will, and then he won't, and then you'll go, "Oh, it's been a week."

And then before you know it, that'll be the end of- 

[00:48:40] Natalie: Yeah, and I'm quite happy with that. I mean, I'm breastfeeding anyway because, you know, I'm feeding Dylan, so yeah, I'm happy to continue that. 

[00:48:49] Emma Pickett: Yeah. So just the final part of our conversation, let's talk about breastfeeding a seven-month-old, 'cause that's not a conversation I have very often.

Um- 

[00:48:56] Natalie: Yeah ... 

[00:48:56] Emma Pickett: what's a typical night for Dylan at the moment? You're co- are you co-sleeping and you don't even know how often he's feeding? Or what- Yeah ... what's happening? 

[00:49:02] Natalie: It's all over the place. I don't know. S- like, say, last night he was on loads, probably seven, eight times. Um, the night before I think he only, he only latched on about twice.

So it's very variable. I just, again, I just feed on demand with him. He just feeds whenever he's hungry. He definitely is quite interested in things happening in the daytime now, so he tends to go a bit longer during the day, and then he will make up for it, um, at night because, yeah, there's just so much excitement, isn't there- Yeah

when you're seven months. 

[00:49:38] Emma Pickett: Good old reverse cycling. Yeah, that's- ... one of the reasons that co-sleeping keeps people alive, 'cause w- it's the one time when, uh, reverse cycling isn't the end of the world. And, and what's your situation with work? Back, back at work? What's, in the imminent future, or what's happening with 

[00:49:51] Natalie: that?

Yeah, I'll be going back ... So actually I'll be starting a new job, 'cause I just, um, finished. I've just become a consultant, so I'm starting my new job in, I think, November. 

[00:50:03] Emma Pickett: Okay. And what, what are your childcare preferences with Dylan and Ruben? 

[00:50:07] Natalie: Yeah, so Ruben goes to nursery. He does three days a week. He did do four days, and then when I had Dylan, I t- I took him out for one of the days.

So we have two days with both boys, and then have three days just with Dylan, which I think is a really nice balance. Um, and then Dylan will go back three, maybe four days. Um, we do have grandparents, you know, like I mentioned before, but so- We might do grandma have him one day, but we haven't, I haven't sort of, yeah, decided definitely.

But he's got a place at the same nursery as Ruben and, uh, which I love. I love the nursery. They're really supportive, and I think it will be really nice for him. He's used to going there and picking up big brother, and he'll have big brother there for a year, so I think it will be nice. 

[00:50:57] Emma Pickett: Yeah. That's actually a great way of, of introducing yourself to nursery.

You've been there almost every day of your life. It's, it's part of your family, you know, routine and, and then you one day you go there. That seems very logical, doesn't it? Yeah. Uh, that's, that's a great way of doing it Thank you so much, Natalie, for sharing your story. And I, and I love how you challenge the assumptions about how weaning has to work, and I love how you say, you know, "Sod it, we're just doing daddy bedtimes", and, "Sod it, this is the, this is the way I'm doing things for night weaning, and if he's upset, I'm just gonna feed."

I think it's great for us to hear a different approach and, and, and it a- it absolutely did work for you. With aversion, just quickly, did you do any of the stuff that you'll read online about, um, you know, breathing exercises or taking B complex vitamins or magnesium? Or is there anything else that you did that made a difference, or you just focused on distraction?

[00:51:49] Natalie: Mainly just distraction, to be honest with you. I mean, I know all the breathing exercises as a psychiatrist, but yeah, um, I did start taking magnesium because I had restless legs, um, in pregnancy, but it didn't make a difference on the aversion, so- 

[00:52:04] Emma Pickett: Okay ... 

[00:52:05] Natalie: I don't know. Yeah. I just let it, I just let it go. And I know it's hard.

I wouldn't, you know, I would never judge anybody who decided to stop because they had bad aversion because it's awful. It's horrible. Um, but yeah, I, I think, you know, everyone who, who breastfeeds is just amazing and, you know, you know how hard it is, how much of a commitment it is and, and you know, just devotion really to, to doing that.

It's, 

[00:52:37] Emma Pickett: it's a lot. Yeah. Devotion is a good word. And I'm wondering whether also it makes a difference who's around you. Um, if you've got family members and partners saying, "What the heck are you doing?" I mean, you mentioned that your husband kind of gently nudged you a little bit to say, "Is this really working for you?"

But didn't put any pressure on you beyond that conversation. I think if you've got, you know, close family members saying, "No, you need to stop this right now. This is, this is bananas," that probably feels a bit different, but it sounds as though you were surrounded by people that were absolutely happy f- to support you with your goals, which must be significant.

[00:53:07] Natalie: Yeah. It's really interesting actually, 'cause I don't have anyone in my family who really ... Well, no, my mum did breastfeed, but not for a long time. Um, and yeah, rest of my family know, and my husband's family and it's, it's a very new thing for them, um, a bit of an out there idea that I'm still feeding. But I think I'm such a, like, headstrong person that they wouldn't really challenge me.

And I, I think it's, it's also great, and I talk about it a lot on purpose because I want people … I think a lot of the time with older nurslings, people don't talk about it. People won't mention it. And I've had multiple times where, you know, it's come up in conversation, obviously, 'cause I've got a new baby, and they'll say, "Are you breastfeeding?"

I say, "Oh, yeah, and I feed my three-year-old". And- And multiple times the other person's turned around to me and said, "Oh, I'm still feeding my two-year-old," or, you know. But I wouldn't have known it because they probably would not have said that- Yeah, 

[00:54:06] Emma Pickett: yeah ... 

[00:54:07] Natalie: out loud in public. So I kind of go everywhere. If it can come in, up in the conversation, I'll mention that I'm doing it, because I think it's really good to, to have it be, like, open and talked about and normalized because there, there's not that many people who are doing it, and the people who are doing it aren't mentioning it that much.

[00:54:26] Emma Pickett: Yeah. That's very true. Fantastic, yeah. Yeah, the relief of meeting someone else who also feeds beyond babyhood is that, "Ah." Yeah. "I've met my kindred spirit." That's a very special thing. Thank you so much for your time today, Natalie. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to make sure we mention?

[00:54:43] Natalie: No, I don't think so. I think we've talked about a lot. 

[00:54:46] Emma Pickett: Okay. So I will put the information for, for Milk, M-I-L-C, in the show notes. And, um, yeah, thank you so much for your time, and good luck with the rest of your breastfeeding journeys and, and good luck when you're back at work as well. 

[00:54:58] Natalie: Thank you.

[00:55:04] Emma Pickett: Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at emmapicketibclc and on Twitter at 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.