As the tandem-nursing mother of two, Lucy AitkenRead of Lulastic and the Hippy Shake, knows quite a bit about breastfeeding.
In honor of World Breastfeeding Week 2016, she’s put together a list of fun facts about nursing for fans everywhere to enjoy. Take a look:
– Breastmilk most resembles ice cream! “While ice cream is looked at as one of the king of junk foods, there is no question that it is more similar to human breast milk than any other food.”
– One boob is bigger than the other! 73% of women had a more dominant breast. However it was evenly split between left and right. Hefty lefty! Mighty Righty!
– A breastfed baby can recognise her mother’s milk through her sense of smell. “By 2 weeks, a baby can tell the difference between the scent of his mother’s breast milk and another mom’s milk.”
– Breastfeeding mums burn between 300 & 500 calories a day. So it’s technically anything between the equivalent of 3-5 miles of walking, not the 7 all those loooosers say it is. *Ahem* And it should be pointed out that it doesn’t ALWAYS equal weight loss as some of us just want to EAT ALL THE FOOD while breastfeeding.
– Breastmilk is different at times of the day, evening milk makes babies sleepy. (Unless you had plans to watch The Wire back to back all evening and then they will be awake, giggling and shouting and not sleeping until about 11pm. I jest!)
– Baby’s saliva communicates health needs to mama’s nipple and mama produces the antibodies in her breastmilk. And that is the weirdest and most wonderful true fact about breastfeeding. (That link is pretty much the best article on breastfeeding on the planet, I think.)
Lucy, who believes her parenting style “probably belongs in a cave with a tribe,” has relocated her family from South London to a yurt on an organic farm in New Zealand. Take a quick peek into their lives, via a few of her Instagram photos:
All images shared with permission from Lucy AitkenRead, of Lulastic and the Hippy Shake.
Doesn’t their home life look wild and lovely? I don’t know if I’m personally up for doing it full-time, but I’d sure love to go for a visit.
While I am, of course, impressed by the breastfeeding facts, something else Lucy wrote about a nursing misconception caught my eye:
“[The] ‘your body produces EXACTLY the right amount of breastmilk’ fact that is SO NOT A FACT. I almost drowned beneath the amount of breastmilk I produced for Juno, and the first 8 weeks of breastfeeding her were sooooo stressful, a wrangling and wrestling of positions under a shower of milk… and I know too that there are mamas who just can’t produce the milk their baby needs.”
This! You wouldn’t believe the number of towels and breast pads I went though in my early breastfeeding days. Baby would latch onto one side, and the other somehow thought it was also ‘go’ time. For me, much of nursing was a very wet experience.
What part of breastfeeding has surprised you the most?
Share with usLucy’s latest book, 30 Days of Rewilding: Find your place in nature and watch your family bloom, is now available. Also be sure to connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.
