DiamondAir

> From: "Susan \(mother to 5 in Fla\)" <samiot@...>
> They couldn't have used me for any show on negatives of extended nursing.

Me neither. I'm nursing both my kiddos (4 and 1). My mom sometimes gives me
the "aren't you going to wean him yet?" speech about my oldest, but I just
remind her that she can't think he's the greatest kid in the world and at
the same time think that nursing is doing him some irreparable harm. Also,
he's never sick and she has friends who give her the gamut on their
grandchildren's latest ear infections, etc. so maybe that helps.

Blue Skies!
-Robin-
Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) who comments about our garden: "I think a
bulldozer would solve this weed problem"
and Asa (10/5/99) who loves to dance
http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family

dawn

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, DiamondAir wrote:

>
> Blue Skies!
> -Robin-
> Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) who comments about our garden: "I think a
> bulldozer would solve this weed problem"
> and Asa (10/5/99) who loves to dance
>
>
Robin!!!!! Long time no see. Wow. I can't believe that toddler Mackenzie
is *4* already, not to mention Asa walking.
dawn h-s, mom to the boyz (Nathan almost 8, Aidan 5, and Tynan the Tiny
Titan 4 months)

uebinger robyn

Dear Robin,
I would just like to say it's great that you are nursing both of your
kids at once. I am a mother of four. My youngest is 3 months. All of my
children nursed until they were 3. I weaned them about half way through my
pregnancy. My two oldest boys had no problem with this but my third child
seems she may be having a problem. The last time she nursed was when I was
in labor with my now three month old. We tried to make her involved in every
aspect of the pregnancy and birth. We had an unassisted homebirth. She loves
her baby brother so much and is never mean or even crabby with him. But she
seems very angry with me. I understand that part of that is the adjustment
to not being the baby anymore. I wonder though if she isn't upset about not
nursing. We had a stop nursing party for her where she enjoyed telling us
how big she was. When we go to bed together at night she always wants to
cuddle and fondle my breasts. I ask her if she still wants to nurse and she
says sometimes. I often regret not continuing nursing her as well. I think I
took away her feeling of security she much needed with the birth of our son.
I have thought about asking her is she would like to nurse sometimes but I
don't know how she would handle it. I feel overwhelmed sometimes just with
my new son but it upsets me to see how angry she gets.She never acted out
like this before. Any advice?
I am new to unschooling and am still having some trouble with it. My
children have never been in school but we homeschooled in a fairly
traditional way. Can anyone offer me some of their success stories? I could
really use some encouragement.
Thank you,
The other Robyn (mom to Ashton 10, Given 7,
Sage 3, and Emerson 3 months)
>From: "DiamondAir" <diamondair@...>
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: <[email protected]>
>Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Extended nursing, was RE: really quiet list!!
>Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:08:16 -0700
>
> > From: "Susan \(mother to 5 in Fla\)" <samiot@...>
> > They couldn't have used me for any show on negatives of extended
>nursing.
>
>Me neither. I'm nursing both my kiddos (4 and 1). My mom sometimes gives me
>the "aren't you going to wean him yet?" speech about my oldest, but I just
>remind her that she can't think he's the greatest kid in the world and at
>the same time think that nursing is doing him some irreparable harm. Also,
>he's never sick and she has friends who give her the gamut on their
>grandchildren's latest ear infections, etc. so maybe that helps.
>
>Blue Skies!
> -Robin-
>Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) who comments about our garden: "I think a
>bulldozer would solve this weed problem"
>and Asa (10/5/99) who loves to dance
>http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family
>
>

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uebinger robyn

Dear Robin,
I would just like to say it's great that you are nursing both of your
kids at once. I am a mother of four. My youngest is 3 months. All of my
children nursed until they were 3. I always weaned them about half way
through my pregnancy. My two oldest boys had no problem with this but my
third child seems she may be having a problem. The last time she nursed was
when I was in labor with my now three month old. We tried to make her
involved in every aspect of the pregnancy and birth. We had an unassisted
homebirth. She loves her baby brother so much and is never mean or even
crabby with him. But she seems very angry with me. I understand that part of
that is the adjustment to not being the baby anymore. I wonder though if she
isn't upset about not nursing. We had a stop nursing party for her where she
enjoyed telling us how big she was. When we go to bed together at night she
always wants to cuddle and fondle my breasts. I ask her if she still wants
to nurse and she says sometimes. I often regret not continuing nursing her
as well. I think I took away her feeling of security she much needed with
the birth of our son. I have thought about asking her is she would like to
nurse sometimes but I don't know how she would handle it. I feel overwhelmed
sometimes just with my new son but it upsets me to see how angry she gets.
She never acted out like this before. Any advice?
I am new to unschooling and am still having some trouble with it. My
children have never been in school but we homeschooled in a fairly
traditional way. Can anyone offer me some of their success stories? I could
really use some encouragement.
Thank you,
The other Robyn (mom to Ashton 10, Given 7,
Sage 3, and Emerson 3 months)
>From: "DiamondAir" <diamondair@...>
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: <[email protected]>
>Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Extended nursing, was RE: really quiet list!!
>Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:08:16 -0700
>
> > From: "Susan \(mother to 5 in Fla\)" <samiot@...>
> > They couldn't have used me for any show on negatives of extended
>nursing.
>
>Me neither. I'm nursing both my kiddos (4 and 1). My mom sometimes gives me
>the "aren't you going to wean him yet?" speech about my oldest, but I just
>remind her that she can't think he's the greatest kid in the world and at
>the same time think that nursing is doing him some irreparable harm. Also,
>he's never sick and she has friends who give her the gamut on their
>grandchildren's latest ear infections, etc. so maybe that helps.
>
>Blue Skies!
> -Robin-
>Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) who comments about our garden: "I think a
>bulldozer would solve this weed problem"
>and Asa (10/5/99) who loves to dance
>http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family
>
>

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com

DiamondAir

> From: dawn <dawn@...>
> Robin!!!!! Long time no see. Wow. I can't believe that toddler Mackenzie
> is *4* already, not to mention Asa walking.
> dawn h-s, mom to the boyz (Nathan almost 8, Aidan 5, and Tynan the Tiny
> Titan 4 months)

Wow, hi Dawn! I can't believe your boys are so big, I guess it's been a
couple of years since I saw them! And who is this tiny titan??
Congratulations!! If you have pics, send them my way. I'd love to see your
guys and you too!

Funny, I was just thinking of you yesterday - while nursing in fact - about
some post you had made when you were tandem nursing about the different
rates of nursing driving you nuts. I'm getting the same effect here, and
rarely nursing the two of them at the same time anymore.

Blue Skies!
-Robin-
Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) who comments about our garden: "I think a
bulldozer would solve this weed problem"
and Asa (10/5/99) who loves to dance
http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family

DiamondAir

> From: "uebinger robyn" <emersonsage@...>
> But she seems very angry with me. I understand that part of
> that is the adjustment to not being the baby anymore. I wonder though if
she
> isn't upset about not nursing. We had a stop nursing party for her where
she
> enjoyed telling us how big she was. When we go to bed together at night
she
> always wants to cuddle and fondle my breasts. I ask her if she still wants
> to nurse and she says sometimes. I often regret not continuing nursing her
> as well. I think I took away her feeling of security she much needed with
> the birth of our son. I have thought about asking her is she would like to
> nurse sometimes but I don't know how she would handle it. I feel
overwhelmed
> sometimes just with my new son but it upsets me to see how angry she gets.
> She never acted out like this before. Any advice?


Well, you might want to try asking her if she wants to try nursing. I know
several moms who have done so - most of the kids took up the offer once or
twice but stopped when they realized they no longer knew how to get milk
out. One mom I know did have a young child go back to nursing for awhile. If
you don't feel comfortable doing that, you might try to find other ways in
which you can "baby" her. I know Mackenzie still likes to play sometimes
that he's the baby. He'll say "I'm just a little bitty baby today" and we'll
pretend that he's the baby, I'll hold him in my lap and he'll crawl around
on the floor. Also he likes me to read from the journals I've kept, I read
him things he was doing when he was a baby. Often I'll read to him about
what he was like when he was Asa's age, the funny things he did. He likes
that I remember his own babyhood and can bring it back for him. Perhaps you
can set aside some time (I know how hard that is with a baby, but maybe
during naptime), just to hold her daughter in your lap and sing to her, or
carry her in a sling, or in some other way "baby her". I think most kids at
this age feel this conflicting pull between big kid and baby. Although she
might enjoy telling you how big she is, there's another part of her that is
reaching back for what is left behind. Honoring that is probably the best
way to help her move past her anger and deal with the new family situation.
Also maybe just help her reflect her feelings - e.g. "It can be hard not to
have mommy all to yourself anymore", "It can be frustrating when the baby
takes up so much of mommy's time", "Sometimes you wish you were still my
little baby again", and see what she says.

> I am new to unschooling and am still having some trouble with it. My
> children have never been in school but we homeschooled in a fairly
> traditional way. Can anyone offer me some of their success stories? I
could
> really use some encouragement.

Since my kids are younger, I don't really have any stories for you. But I'd
really suggest a subscription to "Growing Without Schooling" magazine, which
is specifically for this type of learning ( http://www.holtgws.com/ ). It
has a lot of great ideas, inspiration, etc. and often articles written by
the kids themselves. I'd also recommend reading Grace Llewellyn's books "The
Teenage Liberation Handbook" and "Real Lives". While they are not really
aimed at parents, I got a whole lot out of them regarding unschooling. John
Holt's books "Learning All the Time", "How Kids Learn" and "How Kids Fail"
were also very inspirational and had good ideas about how kids learn
different subjects.
Grace Llewllyn talks about a phenomenon when people start unschooling - that
often they need to take some time to just do nothing. It's hard on parents
because often they think that unschooling is "failing" because their kid is
not interested in anything, but this downtime helps them re-organize the way
they approach learning. Mostly this is in reference to kids who come out of
school, but I have heard families say they experienced the same thing when
going from traditional structured homeschooling to unschooling.

Blue Skies!
-Robin-
Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) who comments about our garden: "I think a
bulldozer would solve this weed problem"
and Asa (10/5/99) who loves to dance
http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family

dawn

On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, DiamondAir wrote:

>
> Wow, hi Dawn! I can't believe your boys are so big, I guess it's been a
> couple of years since I saw them! And who is this tiny titan??
> Congratulations!! If you have pics, send them my way. I'd love to see your
> guys and you too!
Tynan was born at home in May. He's a big boy. 11 lbs 2 oz at birth and
somewhere between 22-23 lbs when we weighed him last. Technicallly I'm
still tandeming and have been now for over 5 years but it is so different
this time that I don't really consider it tandeming. I mean, Aidan nurses
a lot less at 5 than Nathan did at2-4. Plus, he has a big brother to play
with and has shown a lot less displacement than Nathan did. It just makes
sense that a 2.5 yo baby would have a lot more problems with a sibling
than a 5 yo would, yk? You can see some pics at
www.kjsl.com/~dawn/boyz.htm. They aren't the most current pics and the
boyz finally got haircuts in August! Way short haircuts. Nahtan and I
are going shopping for hair color. He wants to color chunk in green, pink
and purple. Let me know if you are interested in a list for older
nurslings. I own one and it's private since we got scammed by a freaky
troll who gets off on breastfeeding:/
dawn

dawn

oops! I meant to send that privately.....sorry


dawn h-s

" "I am a woman here on planet Earth
I have the breath of life in me, a gift given at birth
No one, no body, no powers that be
Can ever, ever, ever take this gift away from me."
--Ruth Pelham