Toddler Breastfeeding: Surviving the Judgement

Breastfeeding in America has begun to shift, slowly, and I am grateful to see the change.  At one point, in this country, it was very difficult for women to breastfeed comfortably in public or without pressure to switch to formula.  Now, thankfully, the American Academy of Pediatrics at least recommends breastfeeding for 12 months, or longer as long as mutually desirable for mother or baby.  Breastfeeding my son for the first year was very comfortable and I felt very supported.  Rarely did I come across looks in public and no one ever gave me advice to wean.  I felt that my decision was very respected and  my efforts for my son were validated and encouraged.

And then he turned one.  Slowly, I have noticed, questions have begun to arise.  People I know, people I don't know, all wondering: so, when are you going to wean him?  They have many different reasons for the question, I imagine.  Some of them wish to have me return to a more free life (my son still nurses to sleep and is dependent upon me in this manner, refusing all forms of bottles and pacifiers, so I cannot be apart from him at night).  Others seem to have a cultural aversion to the idea of breastfeeding a toddler.  I often hear: "if they can ask for it, you know it's time to stop."  While breastfeeding an infant is supported by most people (that I know, at least), breastfeeding a toddler feels way more controversial.

I included the above image from Time magazine because I think it's a great example of how our culture has a difficult time with the idea of Toddler breastfeeding.  The extreme of this image (placing the child on a chair and making him appear much older) seems like a perfect example of an article that attempted to document the positive shift towards tolerance of breastfeeding, but then purposefully published a picture that would make people uncomfortable and unsupportive.  It seemed the reaction made people very uncomfortable with the child's age even though the child on the cover of the magazine is three years old and this is a pretty normal phenomenon in most of the world.  I've noticed that many people seem to think that if you let them keep breastfeeding, they won't stop until the elementary years.  Truthfully, we all probably know someone somewhere who did allow such a thing to happen, but I truly believe that is an extreme rarity.  On average, in the world, children given free access to breastfeeding usually naturally wean themselves between 2 and 4.  It is rare for a child to continue to breastfeed by choice past this age.  Most people that I know who continued breastfeeding had children that gave it up by the age of three.  

There is also a belief that mothers who continue to breastfeed are doing so for their own needs and not the needs of their child.  And while there may be a rare few of those mothers out there, most mothers I know only continue to breastfeed because of their child's own need.  If the child chooses to wean, many of us might gladly give it up!  If you've ever breastfed a toddler, you'll know that it can be a frustrating experience at times, full of demands, acrobatics, and often, inconvenience.

So, while breastfeeding is gaining in support, most of us who continue through the second year are met with some resistance.  Whether it's cultural or personal, it doesn't matter, either way, it can make you question yourself.  And Mommy Doubt is the worst.  Especially when it would be so much easier to think of yourself above all.  So, I listen, and I research, and what I have found is that not a single person has said something that gave me a good reason to wean my son.  And by good reason, I mean one that is best for his development.  Yes, it would be fun for me to be a little more free and go out occasionally in the night time...but is that really worth forcing my son to fall asleep on his own or wean when he's not ready?  Yes, he can ask for it and his timing frustrates me occasionally...but that just means that he can communicate a need and it actually makes my life easier in the long run because I'm not trying to interpret a cry.  The ability to voice a need should not make any need go away.  

Instead, I look at the research, and the research tells me that what I am doing is good for him.  The World Health Organization recommends at least 24 months of breastfeeding.  According to KellyMom.com, there are a number of benefits to continued breastfeeding into toddlerhood, including nutrition, immunity and prevention of illness, cognitive achievement and intellectual development, mental and social development, and positive impact on mother's health.  My son eats full meals throughout the day and mostly now breastfeeds for comfort (like many children seek from bottles or pacifiers) and as a component of his nutrition.  He can be picky about what he eats sometimes, but because he's breastfeeding, I never have to worry about his nutrition because I know the rest is made up through my milk.

When I combine all that information with the averages of cultures around the world, I realize that my decision to follow my son is not one that needs to be judged.  While it may not be touted by many Montessorians, some of whom believe in focusing on weaning as a road to independence, I choose to see it as following the child and supporting his natural independence when he chooses to be ready for that.  And while it may not be the choice for everyone (or necessary for all children), I realize that it's the right choice for my family.  And it's a choice I can reevaluate as time goes on, as long as I'm always thinking about what's best for my child.  And that helps me survive the judgment.

Taking Time For The "Little" Walk

We all know the value of walks for our children.  Getting outdoors, breathing the fresh air, exploring senses, and getting exercise are all wonderful benefits for both adults and children.  However, for the toddler especially, taking a walk can be a tiring experience and adults often find that children cannot walk very far.  So, instead, we contain children in strollers or carriers and go on our way.  We take the child for a walk, but he never walks.

Dr. Montessori, in Education for a New World (p.46-47), wrote: "At the age of two years, the child has a need for walking that most psychologists fail to consider.  He can walk for a mile or even two, and if part of it is up-hill, so much the better, for he loves to go up; the difficult points in the walk are the interesting ones.  But adults have to realize what walking means to the child; the idea that he cannot walk comes from the fact that they expect him to walk at their rate, and when he cannot, from the shortness of his legs, keep up, they pick him up and carry him to get the quicker to their goal.  But the child does not want to get anywhere; he just wants to walk, and to help him truly the adult must follow the child, and not expect him to keep up."  She wrote that "the child has his own laws of growth, and if we want to help him grow, we must follow him instead of imposing ourselves on him."  Instead of walking where we want to go or walking to get somewhere, children should walk "guided by attraction, and here education can help the child by introducing him to the colours, the shapes and forms of leaves, and the habits of insects, animals and birds...All these give point to his interest when he goes out and the more he learns, the more he walks."


In my attempt to capitalize on Montessori's wisdom, my son and I take what I like to call "little" walks. We often walk for a long time, sometimes an hour or more, but we may hardly go more than a few blocks.  We do not walk with any purpose other than walking and we go wherever my son's interests take us.  I do not make him follow any intended course, and when I do need him to follow a certain direction, I bait him using his interests.  I may point out a leaf down the path we need to go, or show him and animal, and he runs in that direction not because of my decision but because there is more to learn and discover!

On our little walks we find wonderful things.  We may find a bug and watch how it moves or stop and consider the movements of a squirrel or a bird.  My son likes to explore different terrains and trying to walk over them, "off-roading" as I like to call it.  Sometimes he finds a new place to explore, or a door to open and close.

Sometimes he chooses to bring his Y- Bike outdoors and explore new terrains that way.

Often, my son will stop and pick up rocks and move them around the environment over and over, for a long time.

Because he loves to pick things up, and in my desire to help him find something to do with those things rather than put them in his mouth, we bring a small bag or bucket for him to carry and collect things.  This works great as he is very much in that "load and tote phase"discussed by Alissa Marquess at Creative With Kids.  Such an elemental part of development to let kids explore and feel the weight of the items they discover, and giving them purpose or direction.  

I am not in control of our walks, he is.  I only assert myself when he wants to go into the road (which he is not allowed) or I use the tricks I mentioned before to help direct him down certain paths.  How long we walk, how far we go, and how long that takes is all up to him.  And the most amazing part of it is that it allows ME to reconnect with nature and find opportunities to share my knowledge with him.  Instead of walking along and not being able to see his little face in a stroller or a carrier, I can instead share the world with him, and that's the best part.

So, the next time you go for a walk, let your kid take control and see where you end up!!

Toddlers and Technology: Mastering the IPad

There is a lot of controversy over the amount of time that toddlers spend with technology.  Pediatricians and other child advocates tend to recommend no more than two hours of television a day for children, and zero television for children under the age of two.  Most of the anti-screen information for toddlers generally focuses on television.  The explanation is simple: television can affect a young child's development of concentration and it's time away from life experiences that will provide far more valuable learning opportunities.  But, in a world of technology, what does that mean for other models of screen technology?  What about computers, smart phones, video games, etc?

As new types of technology come on the scene and become more prevalent, I've been seeing the response by experts to continue along the lines of avoidance for children under the age of two.  And, while I am a strong supporter of keeping television away from this age group as much as possible (for the most part), I am not so quick to dismiss other forms of technology.  I think the true questions to ask ourselves, as parents, are what are the purposes of the technology and how much time is being spent on them?  Are we using these devices as babysitters and are our children becoming too addicted to them?  I think that if we can answer no to these questions, we will find that there actually is some learning value to these devices.

Enter: the IPad.  When my son was very young, he was extremely fussy and we discovered that he enjoyed some elements of the IPad.  Along with the IPhone, the device's ability to light up and react to touch was extremely enticing.  My son is not actually a huge fan of screen time.  Given opportunity to watch television, particularly children's television (which does not happen often), he rarely sticks with it for more than a few minutes.  But, the IPad is a very different story.

At first, I was worried.  I wasn't certain that any amount of time away from real life experiences was a positive, but then I began to think about the broader scope of technology.  The reality of our lives it that technology is an inherent part of our experience.  As it increases in use, it is becoming a necessity.  It's very obvious that the earlier technology is introduced to a human being, the more technology literate they become (and why children often understand computers better than their grandparents!).  In the same way that language literacy becomes stronger the earlier the exposure, I feel that there is some value to this exposure for the sake of technology literacy.  So, I let my little guy play with the IPad.  He never uses it for more than ten minutes, and we almost always interact with him while he uses.  But when he is enthralled by it...he can do some amazing things!

The evolution of his technological understanding has been pretty amazing.  At first he learned how to use the touch screen, but now he can unlock the screen, flip through pages, and find the icons he wants to play with.  He can press the button to return to the home screen.  He can flip through the pages of his book applications.  In fact, every now and then he does something that my husband and I still can't figure out how he did it!

Through my son's exploration of the IPad, I've discovered some great apps that he enjoys and I feel are still appropriate for his learning development.  The apps by Duck Duck Moose are wonderful, although I avoid the academic ones because I don't like how they introduce numbers and letters.  Of their apps, I really like Old MacDonald, Baa Baa Black Sheep, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Musical Me (he instantly recognized this icon on an IPad at the kids table in the Apple store and clicked on it!).  Another great group of apps are done by Kidztory.  They have all sorts of classic books slightly animated and a child can flip through the pages.  Children can choose to have the app read the story to them or, if they can, read it to themselves.  An adult can also read the story to the child in this manner.  You can also download children's books to IBooks; a great way to read while traveling and you don't want to carry heavy books around!

I have downloaded a few academic related apps (although my 15 month old is not using them yet), but I always make sure to find Montessori apps.  Surprisingly, there are a large number of these.  Montessorium has some interesting apps (using the idea of Sandpaper Letters and Sandpaper Numbers) called Intro to Letters and Intro to Numbers.  They also have an app called Alpha Writer that uses the same principles as the Moveable Alphabet.  While I am a firm believer that these things are best learned in a hands-on experience, I do feel that it's a great way to complement that learning when using technology.  If we want our children to explore technology and learn while they do it, then Montessori-related learning apps are a great way to do so!

With our society becoming ever more dependent on technology, I do believe it has a place in our children's lives.  When it comes to my son, I make certain that it remains age-appropriate, appropriate for his skill level, and that it's interactive rather than flashy.  I also watch how much time he spends with it (while it's not much now, I know it's something to keep an eye on in the future).  I enjoy watching him experience these kinds of technology.  His mastery level amazes me on a daily basis!

The Beauty of Repetition: Letting Our Children Have A Learning Moment

One of the most amazing aspects of a child's learning process is the act of repetition.  It is phenomenal how a child can do something over and over (and over and over!), trying desperately to master a skill.  This phenomenon is essential to their growth and allows them to learn to manipulate their bodies and materials in new ways.  From the outside, the infinite loop can seem frustrating to adults who feel the need to move children on (repetitive behavior is not something adults frequently engage in).  Sometimes we fail to recognize that there is amazing internal work going on, and if we hurry it, the moment is lost.

My little guy came across this path the other morning.  It was a steep little rocky path that made me nervous, but I could tell by his persistent little waddle that he was intent upon conquering it.  He began to toddle down it, figured out how fast he needed to go, and was able to control his balance.  When he reached the bottom, he walked back up, turned around, and came down again.  And again.  And again. He must have walked up and down that path ten times.  I stood there and watched while the dog sniffed around the sidewalk.  And then, suddenly, he reached the bottom of the path for the tenth time and he was done, continuing on with walking and moving his attention elsewhere.  The dog and I followed suit.  Lately, I've noticed, that he's been very focused on trying to master his balance while walking, particularly on different terrains.  Outside my mother's house, he practiced walking up and down a low-slanted curve over and over.  Occasionally, my husband would offer his hand in the beginning to help him over the curve and he would take it.  But after three or four times, he refused the hand and began to repeat the activity on his own.

As parents, we are often told to look for those teachable moments in which we can impart wisdom or knowledge to our children.  Those moments are wonderful to take advantage of, but there is another kind of moment.  Your child has his own internal teachable moments that have nothing to do with you. They are learning moments when your child has the opportunity to learn and master something.  Our role as parents is to simply let our children have and experience these moments without intervening (unless helping when they seem to look for it and backing off when they are ready to try it on their own).  So if you see an activity in repetition, let it happen!  Yes, it can mean waiting there and being patient, but it is so worth it.

The Sensitive Period For Order

After the age of one, many parents begin to see the early signs of what is frequently dubbed as the "terrible twos." What many parents don't realize is that this behavior has a very direct cause and can be linked to a very necessary developmental process in the brain: the Sensitive Period for Order. This sensitive period, which is a critical period of learning that allows the brain to make certain foundational developments, is essential to the child's ability to learn to classify and organize the information around him.

Around the age of 18 months to 2 ½, certain characteristics and behaviors begin to appear strongly in the young child.  This is actual the peak time for the sensitive period which begins at birth and fades away closer to the age of six. When discussing ages relative to sensitive periods, however, it's important to remember that every child's brain is different, and so these ages are estimates and not exact. At 15 months, my son is already beginning to exhibit strong signs of entering into this period. He falls apart easily and throws himself to the floor when he becomes frustrated. Unexpected changes can easily throw him into the same kind of frustration. He is just starting to understand that everything has it's place and that there are certain consistent causes and effects in the world. When he meets inconsistency or the unexpected, it's quite a blow.

When children reach this peak period of the sensitive period, they often fuss or cry because things change or are different, new places or new activities may upset them.  Schedule becomes extremely important and some children may fall apart when their routine is changed. Children may show distress when things in their environment are moved and they may attempt to put them back in place. It's these very common place symptoms that have lead to that popular phrase, the “terrible twos,” and it has long been believed that children are focused on getting their own way.  This period of time becomes complicating for many parents who often find themselves engaged in endless battles, find it difficult to get "control" of their child, or become frustrated when their child does not adapt easily to new circumstances or routines.

What is really happening, however, is not rigidity or defiance, but rather a very profound and important developmental stage.   While children are learning to accept discipline, these battles often occur less because the child is trying to get his/her own way but because the adult fails to understand what the child is experiencing.  Children's actions are often misunderstood as defiance or willfulness, when they are actually a result of frustration and confusion. The root of that confusion lies in what defines the Sensitive Period for Order: children need things to remain the same.  By order, we do not refer to the need to create order out of chaos (many of these children are very happy creating chaos which derives from another developmental need to take things apart). Instead, it refers to the child's need for things need to stay in the same place and activities need to occur throughout the day in the same manner.  Children prefer to do and see things they have done before, and novelty can be a little off-putting.  

These characteristics of the mind are directly linked to the child’s need to learn.  Biologically, the child's mind is preparing itself to acquire, categorize, and utilize sensory input, or information. Children enter the world without the ability to regulate any of that information. Their brains do not develop the ability to regulate sensory input until, roughly, crawling age.  They are open to the continuous bombardment of information. Then, as the brain ages, it begins to develop the ability to sort out that information. However, the world in its entirety is enormous, and so, children must collect a wealth of information in order to operate within it.  The child’s brain must develop the ability to learn a language, coordinate movements, communicate wants and needs, and so much more.   Information is everywhere, and the child’s brain is just learning how to use it.

Think of the newly born child’s brain as an empty records room.  Information just begins pouring in from all over the place.  All these pieces of information just pile up and can be very overwhelming, which is why young infants are so easily overloaded.  Eventually though, the brain begins to develop a filing system.  It creates cabinets, drawers, and folders for the information that is coming in.  Now, an adult’s brain has a much more complex filing system than a child’s.  The adult’s brain can file a piece of information in multiple places, or develop very distinct categories or more generalized categories depending upon what is needed for a piece of information.  Adults have the abstract thinking abilities to do this and, more importantly, a foundational filing system to extrapolate from.  But the child is just starting out, just building this filing system.  He creates a category and files a piece of information in it.  Now, if that information changes or moves, he may not have a new category yet created to explain such a thing.  His black and white filing system is not prepared to file this information elsewhere, categorize the information in a new way, or understand this change yet, so he is distressed.  Order (things happening in an expected way or objects being in an expected place) helps the child maintain things in a very specific way so that he may organize the information in his mind.  Then, as he ages and develops new ways of thinking, he can begin to move that information around.  For the very young child, however, every time something changes, it’s like someone has walked into the filing room, ripped pieces of paper from the files and tossed them about because there is not yet a new place for them to go.   Can you imagine how frustrating and debilitating that might feel?  The child usually will have one of two responses: he will either show frustration and anger because he cannot figure out how to return the order or he will find a way to return the order and delight in his accomplishment.

For example, in the classroom, if a teacher moves a table and chair to another part of the room after hours when the children are not in attendance, she may find that later in the following day the table and chair have returned to their original positions.  She may move them again with no one noticing and again, she will find them returned.  What has happened is that the children know things to be one way and wish to have it remain that way.  They are not defying the teacher, but rather, delighting in their ability to return things to what they consider a natural order.

On the other hand, another example might be to consider the mother and daughter standing at a cupcake counter.  The mother allows the daughter to pick out a cupcake for herself and other family members, pays, and the two move to continue with their day.  The child asks for the cupcake immediately, but the mother refuses because she wants the child to wait until she gets home.  She explains this.  Now the five or six year old may have a better chance of understanding because they have built in necessary categories for waiting, but the two year old child falls apart.  While the mother sees this as defiance and the child trying to get her way, the child is more likely having this reaction because she is not capable of understanding waiting.  In her mind, the order of things goes: you pick something to eat and you eat it.  Now the child and parent are engaged in battle, the parent trying to teach the child that she can’t cry and get her way (which is a fair reaction) and the child trying to understand why she can’t have the cupcake she was told she could have (at some point).

As a parent you may now be asking, so what do I do?  Give a child everything she wants because she is sensitive to order?  The answer is still no, but what knowledge of the sensitive period for order can do is help you prepare your child and yourself for changes or misunderstandings that might ensue because children understand that things happen a certain way or belong in a certain place.  You can avoid a tantrum under these circumstances, or perhaps be more sensitive to it. Ultimately, it helps to prepare a young child with information before you change something, or let them participate in the change.  Had the teacher from earlier sat with the children and showed them what she was doing, the children would have created a new category in the process of participation and shifted their concept of where the chair belongs, creating a new order.  They would then have not need to move it.  The mother from earlier might have chosen to secretly obtain a cupcake from her daughter and surprise her with it later when she could eat it.  Or, if her daughter were a bit older, explained exactly where and when the child could eat the cupcake before she chose it.  

It is important to respect a child’s sense of order and understand their experiences to help you engage in fewer battles.  Understanding that change can throw a child’s need for familiarity off can help you prepare them for times when you cannot avoid it happening.  The key to helping avoid the battle is to help the child create a new sense of order for the change through preparation.  You can tell your children things may change before they do.  If it is a long-term change, you can try easing them into it by changing things in increments over time.  Or, you can help them participate in the decision-making process that leads to the change.  The important thing is to remember that your child’s frustration or focus is based on his need to learn and understand the world and not the desire to control or manipulate.  When your child is upset, if you think on how things may have changed and look to remedy unanticipated change in the future, you may find that the instances of battle and distress become far fewer.  

While this sense of order can cause frustrations, it can also cause amazing focus on keeping things clean and learning how they work.  Children before the age of six (and especially between two and four) love to participate in the activities that maintain order, like cleaning, folding, putting things away, and other daily activities.  Allowing your child to participate in these activities and learn them is a great way to keep him occupied when he is active and having a hard time finding something to do (when you are showing your child how to do something, come up with one sequence for showing him how to do it and show it too him the same way each time; even changing how you do something each time can confuse a child and make them become disinterested).

One day this need for order will disappear, and your child will move pass this phase of development into a phase of disorder (when parents are constantly wishing for the child to clean up after himself!).  Letting your child learn how to do these things that appeal to his sense of order will also help him gain great independence.  It will also help him put is energy into activities that will develop his skills and his ability to concentrate.  The child’s sense of order is and essential part of his development and helps him make sense of a very large and confusing world.  Your sensitivity to it can make all the difference.   

The Three Parenting Camps: In Which Do You Belong?

So often, parents find themselves questioning what they do or wondering what they should do.  As a parent educator, I find these questions really only skim the surface of parenting.  At the heart of the matter is really your philosophy of parenting: what are you trying to accomplish, what are your belief systems about children and their development, and what is your lifestyle like?  When you understand how you think about parenting, then you will have a better ability to make decisions and greater satisfaction with the decisions that you are making.

While philosophies about parenting can often be complex and there certainly are a multitude of them, I have found that the starting point for choosing or adhering to any parenting philosophy or style really boils down to three "camps" of thought.  Each camp holds an attitude about how parents should approach their lives and what they should expect from themselves and their children.  Each camp then tailors their decisions (parenting decisions, life decisions, etc.) based on that attitude.

First, you have the Parent-Centered Camp.  This attitude towards child-rearing is rooted in very old-school thinking about children and how they fit into the lives of a parent, and is focused on fitting the child into the adult's life.  The focus tends to be first on the parent's ultimate need and then finding a solution that will help the child fit that need.  Some parenting choices that result from this camp of thought include "cry-it-out" and other types of sleep training methods, adapting a child to an adult-chosen schedule, and formula-only feeding as a non-emergency choice.  Parent-centered parenting expects baby to accommodate the adult.  The parent-centered camp supports the belief that when parents focus on their own needs (particularly with regard to the marriage in an intact family), this will result in better psychological health and emotional health for the parents and so, they can more adequately help the child adapt into the family and society.

Next, you have the Child-Centered Camp.  This attitude towards child-rearing has shifted from the traditional view to fitting the child into the adult's from revolving the adult's life around the child.  Accommodation shifts from the child to the adult, who seeks to meet all of babies needs even if they conflict with the adult's own needs and desires.  This approach can often be difficult and harder on parents who don't have support and are often questioned by the more traditional parent-centered approach.  Some parenting choices made by parents in this camp include co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, and child-led weaning.  The child-centered camp supports the belief that children are developmentally different from adults and that trying to fit them to an adult's schedule and an adult's needs is psychologically and emotionally damaging to the child's optimal development.

Finally, a third approach can be found in what might be considered the Family-Centered Camp.  This attitude tends to be mostly child-centered in that the parents attempt to make most of the life accommodations that the child needs, but then occasionally expects the child to make accommodations for the child/family when necessary.  Parents only ask the child to accommodate the parent when they feel it is a necessity for the family.  This camp supports the belief that children are developmentally different from adults and need to be accommodated for optimally psychological and emotional development, but also feels that children are resilient and capable of making some changes/accomodations if the majority of their needs are met in a timely and supportive fashion by the parent.

Personally, I fall into the Family-Centered Camp, though I am as child-centered with my abilities as I can be.  As a Montessorian, my approach to education and child-rearing is inherently child-centered.  Montessori philosophy is deeply rooted in following the child's development and preparing an environment that is tailored to the child's needs.  I have a very difficult time with the parent-centered approach because I believe that we should be raising children, not fitting them into the lives we've already dictated for ourselves.  I believe that parenting is a sacrifice and an undertaking that should be made in order to guide and raise a competent, independent, conscientious, and caring adult.  If humanity is going to grow, it should be with those kinds of people.  And if those kinds of people are going to create themselves, they need to have the utmost respect of the innate developmental process within them, as well as the guidance and support of adults who can show them how to be competent members of society.  I firmly believe that if we want children to respect everyone's needs, we need to show them that same respect in the beginning.

I understand that the child-centered approach to parenting is often accused of being soft on discipline and living through one's child, but I think that these criticisms are not of the approach but rather, the application. The truth is, choosing any of these camps to be in does not give you all of the answers, but it gives you a starting point.  And from that point, you can begin to make decisions and find solutions that you are comfortable with.