sometimes im just completely annoyed that i need to feed a baby. i feel horrible when i get annoyed, but i just feel like my body isnt Mine anymore. I feel like im constantly in demand and to be quite honest, its wearing down on me…

I felt my uterus contract the first time my son nursed, moments old- and it was painful right after birth. But hours after birth, I began to feel sensations of arousal when he nursed. I was not sure how to process this- because in all of my childbirth preparation I had never heard of anything like this.

Like so much of mothering- I decided to stay open and curious, and to trust the process. I tend to feel more aroused nursing my son when we are home and nursing in the mid day, and I allow my thoughts to drift. Many times when we nurse I don’t feel arousal, but sometimes I do- and it’s a private reflection- something I accept without completely understanding it, as normal.

When I have the most difficulty nursing my son is when I am deep asleep and awake to him nursing—- or when I have some other obligation or am stressed about the day’s schedule— and he unexpectedly wants to nurse longer than he usually does. During those times, I will get an almost creepy feeling about nursing- but I haven’t noticed this to coincide with the feelings of arousal I sometimes have. Also, it seems there is a hormonal rhythm to my moon cycle and at certain points along that cycle, I want to nurse less than at other times.

My son is 3 1/2 now and we still enjoy a close nursing relationship. I refuse to feel shame for nursing him, and am fortunate to not have had sexual abuse in my past, or issues surrounding my sexuality that might preclude me from just accepting “what is” as normal and natural, for me.

This subject, however, I have already processed and reprocessed and reprocessed some more. I knew, as I already mentioned, I could never stand the twiddling thing. It is just too much like something I enjoy during sex. I didn’t get the creepy feelings… at first, not for a long time in fact. I mostly weaned O while pregnant with A because it just HURT. But I told him he could nurse again later. When I tried, the sensation of it was SO creepy and I was HORRIFIED. Not sure if it was due to that whole forgetting how to latch thing so it felt different. It seemed odd (and even more disturbing to me) that I felt that way from him and not the baby. He nursed here and there over the next year, very infrequently, and I felt fortunate he wasn’t insistent about it and would actually say that the milk was for the baby.

Then there is this whole other thing others have mentioned. I really believe, at least for me, that breastfeeding and cosleeping has negatively impacted my sex life. I just have no interest in general, and it seems like part of the reason is that I have to separate these parts of myself. There is something about the close physical contact with my kids that puts that as my primary physical role. I think this is where the abuse comes in…. When I look back at my relationship with my daughter, I realize I started to push her away at some point, probably about 5 or 6. Being really touchy feely and kissy with her started to feel WRONG. I don’t want to be that way with my youngers, and yet…. I just can’t seem to figure out how to do both! I would like a sex life again some day but worry I will have to choose. (Yes, I know I need therapy about this but keep putting it off because I figure they will just tell me to kick my kids out of bed).

I have read things about women feeling pleasure with breastfeeding and enjoying it, just like people talk about orgasmic birth. I WISH this was me and I could enjoy pleasurable sensations without sexualizing them all, but it just isn’t me. :( Recently I saw a friend of mine cuddling with her teenage daughter, and that also just looked SO CREEPY to me. It was an “aha” moment for me for sure, realizing I have no ability to separate affection form sexuality. So when I am breastfeeding, it is like I need to completely turn that part of me off. I am surprised I even got the creepy sensations!

So yeah, way to go as always with your honesty. It is so important for women to be able to talk about this stuff!

For me, my breasts really aren’t a primary erogenous zone, and especially weren’t before I got pregnant. I was very large busted very early in life (wore a 32F when I started high school at 14) and it seemed like the nerve endings were just so far spread apart that I didn’t get much sensation, much less pleasure, from having my breasts stroked – until sometime between my 2nd and 3rd pregnancies. I think I’ve developed more never endings or sensitivity or something (I know I”ve got some new duct connections going by my leak pattern – I have a new weird little leak ON MY AREOLA about an inch above my nipple that puts out a drop of milk every time the new baby latches that wasn’t there before!). I have so much pre-breasts-being-erogenous-zones breastfeeding experience (my 1st and 2nd both weaned around 30 months old) that I don’t think I’ll have any of those cross-over sexual zings from breastfeeding this time either.

For me, the issue is my neck. My neck is my strongest erogenous zone, having my neck nuzzled or stroked is a pretty immediate response-getter, sometimes so forcefully I feel the need to go change underwear. And that’s regardless of who does it – it’s just an automatic response for me. I have had full-on orgasms from being hugged and having my neck nuzzled by my husband.

So, because I admit this, should I not be allowed to hug my children, lest they nuzzle my neck and I have this automatic response in my genitals? Or maybe from the standpoint of those “if you have a sexual response while breastfeeding you should breastfeed” should I have abstained from having and raising children altogether?

Just because you’re getting that response from a specific part of your body that your baby makes frequent use of doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you, or with your physiological response. Some people get off on hand massages/finger sucking – they shouldn’t be allowed to touch their babies and allow their babies to use their fingers as pacifiers then, right? It’s hypocritical to say it’s OK to have that kind of biological response to physical sensations to one part of the non-genital-region body but not another.

1. It might hurt – a LOT
2. It might make your breasts looks different afterward (I, for one, have inverted nipples now)
3. It might be a little creepy at times (or a lot)
4. It might negatively impact your sex life with your partner
5. Anything I’m forgetting that they DELIBERATELY don’t tell you because they don’t want you to avoid nursing.

I think women are given way too little credit. The notion that if we tell them the downsides to breastfeeding they will never even try is insulting. Instead, we encounter the downsides we were NOT expecting, feel that something is wrong with us for experiencing them, and give up in frustration.

Personally, I’ve never had the “creepy” sensation, and I have really loved and cherished breastfeeding. My daughter is still nursing at 27 months and it breaks my heart that she might wean during my current pregnancy if my milk dries up. But my personal experience is neither here nor there, for my present argument. Which is that airing, discussing, educating, venting ALL our POTENTIAL AND ACTUAL issues with breastfeeding will actually further and promote it.

Of course there are constructive and destructive ways to air the issues. The UK article is an example of the destructive – your piece is an example of the constructive.