Mommy Gets Her Body Back And Starts to De-Tox

My daughter is just about to finish breastfeeding. It’s been almost 22 months. Sure, there are a lot of mothers and toddlers who go on longer. My oldest nursed for about 26 months and I wanted my daughter to have the same opportunity as my way of leveling the playing field, so to speak. And yet, our shared lives and biologies have other plans. My milk is supply is very, very low.

There are some easily explained reasons for this. I work outside the home more now than I did when my son was a toddler (two kids are just so much more expensive than one), I hate pumping and have avoided it, and my daughter has always had a better appetite for food that was not breast milk. In some ways, I am sad about the end of this chapter of our lives. I don’t think I will be doing this phase of parenting again.

On the other hand, after almost 6 years of pregnancy and nursing, I will finally have my body back!

I used to take good care of myself, but after so many years of night wakings, I’d lost some of my old energy and let a lot of my better habits slide. One of the things I used to do was a yearly cleanse to re-orient myself with the best ways of eating and exercising. And, while breastfeeding, it was impossible. I never wanted to clean my body of toxins only to have them go into my children’s bellies.

Cleansing or “de-tox” is a pretty controversial topic that means different things to different people. Most doctors say its completely unnecessary and they may might be right. Most herbalists say it is very necessary and can sure many discomforts at a basic level. That said, what I do does not involve herbal laxatives, special “fasting” products, or extremes of anything. I just try to eliminate things like caffeine, sugar and processed foods that contain preservatives and other additives. I do more yoga, buy more organic vegetables and fruit and pay closer attention to how I feel. And, this time, I want to do it to mark my transition from one stage of life to another. I want to see how that feels too.

As a first step, I gave up coffee on Monday. This was no easy task While there are nursing mothers who don’t drink caffeine for the entire time they nurse, I was not one of them. While I kept it to under three cups a day, there is only one thing I like to drink more than coffee.

Yes, tea. And I eliminated that too.

Without caffeine, life was not easy. This morning, after 4 days long days, my headache finally went away and I feel a lot more awake than I have since I went back to work.

And, now that I am feeling better, it’s time to eliminate sugar. I’ll let you know how that makes me feel!