The Reluctant Earth Mother

A nobody's thoughts on mothering

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  • When mother nature comes a-calling

    When mother nature comes a-calling

    I’m on my 4th or 5th period after having Baby 2. Happy to admit that, like many of us, it isn’t my favourite time of the month and I’m not one of those people who are able to embrace the natural wonder of it. Though, I think I would enjoy moon bathing given the chance or maybe that’s just yearning for some alone time.

    I was one of those lucky ones who’s “monthly” flow settled into a 2 week cycle as a teenager. Not crippling but it was, you might say, a pain in the nether regions. After 10 years on the progesterone only pill, as oestrogen sends me loopy and my flatmates banned me from consuming that and vodka at uni, then being pregnant, it was a bit of a shock to have periods again. One of the major upsides of pregnancy was not having to deal with it. I know I am not alone with this sentiment.

    With Baby 1, I knew they came back earlier than the myths would suggest but I don’t remember what they were like. It was during the hazy shock of being a majorly sleep deprived, first time mum dealing with unacknowledged PPA. They just weren’t the top of my to do list. Baby 2 though, the timing was cruelly unfair. 

    After 3 months of exclusive breastfeeding with this dream child, they hit with a vengeance. I’d only just stopped bleeding after birth. I think I lasted about 4 days and during yet another trip to the GP with a newborn, I begged for the pill. After birth, doctors and midwives fling contraceptives at you. 

    The pill gave me three months of bliss then I forgot to go back and ask for more, justified by my ambivalence about taking hormones and so they returned. A flood of gummy blood and pain combined with the needs and demands of a 5 month old and a 2 year old is not my idea of fun. The period after that wasn’t so bad and now we’re at the point that I can more or less ignore it, as long as I change my pants regularly. 

    A book from 1995 gives all the lovely conflicting information on breastfeeding and the return of periods. It says that they usually return when baby starts weaning or sleeps through the night. Or they don’t. It says periods return when baby starts to suckle less. Or they don’t. It says periods will return depending on a woman’s biochemistry. Or they won’t. What it does say is that periods won’t return until baby is 6 months old. Sucks to be me! (La Leche League International, 1995)

    So I think the conclusion is, you get what you get and you have to lump it. 

    La Leche League International. (1995). The breastfeeding answer book. 5th ed. United States of America: La Leche League International. pp.33-35.

  • Avoiding the scales

    Avoiding the scales

    I have been very fortunate this time round to lose a lot of weight with minimal to moderate effort. I lost a bit with my first without putting any effort at all in but by the time I was pregnant with my youngest, a routine diabetes test was strongly encouraged (aka. mandatory).

    I had just slipped under the threshold with my first pregnancy. I did end up going later on but that was to do with bump measurements. It was incredibly uncomfortable having to “relax” in a waiting room, alone for 3 hours with a huge bump. By contrast, at 20 weeks, it was blissful to have 3 hours without my hair being pulled or my glasses being ripped off my face.

    Anyway, with Baby 2, I gave myself 5 months in which to give into any urges and gorge myself. My mission to return to an acceptable weight, as decided by me, began in the traditional month of failed resolutions: January. My reasons were clear: I like my waist, and god forbid more of those awful injections if I’m daft enough to have a third C-section.

    I have a long history of dieting so I knew that calorie counting was the method for me. It took a bit of playing around and accepting that dizziness and an obviously hungry baby weren’t the best ways forward before I settled on around 2000kcal a day. The weight melted off. Even without the suffering. It was incredible, in all the years of trying I’d never been so successful.

    Then, about 3 months in, it all stopped. Trying to remember that the dreaded plateau happens to everyone and is a normal part of the process was excruciating. It was another 3 months and a bolt of lightning to my slow, mushy brain that started it up again. It had taken all my motivation to maintain then I remembered that you could, and probably should, “start again”. As you lose weight, your body needs less to maintain it so the amount you eat may not actually be a calorie deficit anymore. I took 100kcal of my budget and started again. 

    A quick google suggests that you burn between 500 and 700 kcal a day to make breast milk to feed your baby. This comes from La Leche League International so I’m willing to trust those numbers. Certainly having those extra calories to eat a day made things a lot easier. But so was the need to not punish myself or try to lose weight quicker by being hungry all time because otherwise I had a hungry grumpy baby. 

    My experience has been hugely positive and I highly recommend combining weight loss with pumping out a ton of calories in a sweet milky form. You are literally obliged to eat. Trouble is, as with everything, one size does not fit all. Some women end up with their bodies clinging to excess for dear life. The science suggests that many, many, many factors dictate as to whether breastfeeding will help you lose weight (Smethers, 2023).

    Smethers, A D. Trabulsi, J C. Stallings, V A. Papas, M A. Mennella, J A. (2023). Factors Affecting BMI Changes in Mothers during the First Year Postpartum. Nutrients. 15(6).

  • Why bother breastfeeding?

    Why bother breastfeeding?

    I’ll be completely honest, I had two main reasons to breastfeed. 

    1) weight loss (because it’s that simple)

    2) money saving (is it though???) 

    I came to both of these conclusions before I’d actually had a baby with the attitude of “isn’t it obvious?”. To be fair, both have worked out, eventually. A friend told me the other day that exclusively breastfeeding uses up the same amount of calories as walking seven miles a day. That sounds quite impressive in exchange for an effortless task – take effortless here with a pinch of salt, I mean it compared to actual exercise. My calorie counting app gives me an extra 200 calories a day to eat while I am exclusively breastfeeding, equivalent to a decent slice of cake, 3 scoops of ice cream or a couple of chocolate bars. 

    I’m not going to go on about the health benefits (NHS, 2023) and the savings to the NHS (Fewtrell, 2020) and the lovely bonding that supposedly happens between you and baby (Modak, 2023) and all the rest. Or the symbiotic relationship between the environment, you, and baby (Fewtrell, 2020). Midwives use all these reasons to convince us that breast is best all through pregnancy unconsciously, demonising formula. 

    Baby 1 decided that he had had enough of breastfeeding at ten months old. The consistent biting for three days straight didn’t endear him to me so I took the hint and stopped. It was expensive and frustrating buying formula those last 2 months but surprisingly it wasn’t the money I resented so much as having to remember to buy it. Frequently, I had to go late at night after the kid had finally surrendered to sleep in that sweet spot before waking up and bawling for more. The time when I was meant to have five minutes peace. 

    In England, data is collected on breastfeeding mothers after birth at the first feed and then again at the 6-8 week check. The data from 23/24 gives the percentage of babies who have breast milk as their first feed is 71.9% in England which is pretty good. It varies around the country so in my county, the rate is a little lower at 67.9%. There is a huge exclamation point against this data to say that there are concerns with how the data is collected and therefore how accurate this number actually is. It also includes all babies who had donor milk or expressed milk. In the 6-8 week check, one of the questions is whether baby is getting breast milk. There is a huge decline between that first feed and 6-8 weeks later down to 52.7% though from my memory, that wasn’t one of the questions asked so how accurate this data is, is anyone’s guess (Fingertips). 

    Most babies are born in hospital, some good, some bad but all surrounded by midwives, doctors, health care assistants all with the common goal of supporting Mum to give birth and nurture a healthy baby in those first few hours. Part of their job is to support you to feed your baby the way the mother wants to. With that support around, breast is best. Breast can be easy. Once you’re at home, potentially shell shocked by this huge responsibility that has dropped into your life or surrounded by the chaos other children in the home bring, it becomes more difficult. 

    Department of Health & Social Care. (2020). Child and Maternal Health Data. [Online]. Fingertips. Last Updated: 2025. Available at: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/ [Accessed 20 August 2025].

    Fewtrell, M S. Shukri, N H M. Wells, J C K. (2020). ‘Optimising’ breastfeeding: what can we learn from evolutionary, comparative and anthropological aspects of lactatio. BMC Med. 18(4).

    Modak, A. Ronghe, V. Gomase, K P. (2023). The Psychological Benefits of Breastfeeding: Fostering Maternal Well-Being and Child Development. Cureus. 15(10).

    NHS. (2023). Benefits of breastfeeding. [Online]. http://www.nhs.uk. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding/benefits/ [Accessed 20 August 2025].

  • It’s Inevitable

    It’s Inevitable

    Growing up in a house full of pens emblazoned with “Breast Is Best” did give me the impression that breastfeeding was inevitable, even in that naive time of “no chance will I be having children”. My mum, a community midwife, used to come home with huge handfuls of these pens. Different designs every year but usually navy blue with white writing reflecting her uniform. Honestly, I have no idea where they came from and I’m sure if I dug around in their house long enough, some would still be lurking 20 years later. 

    I remember visiting the birth centre where she was based and being accosted by knitted boobs. Even when I was pregnant with my eldest, I opened the door to my midwife sporting a tote bag covered in tea towel drawings of boobs. Such a contrast to the ubiquitous sexualisation of breasts in our culture. My partner gets annoyed with me because I really struggle to use the word breasts even though that is the anatomically correct way of referring to boobs. I’ve no idea why it makes me uncomfortable, but it does. We’re working on that with our kids though Baby 1, a boy, did tell me the other morning that his boobs are small. 

    Before I became a mum, I don’t remember seeing breastfeeding in public and even now it’s really only in church playgroups or specific breastfeeding friendly groups that I see it. When I whip my boob out for Baby 2, I often get curious looks from toddlers whilst Baby 1 just ignores me or sulks because he’s not getting my undivided attention. I remember one occasion in a park where I was feeding Baby 1 and he was being a pain; cold, tired, and hungry is not ideal. A man walking by was watching me and I remember being ready to get prickly and he just said hello and continued walking. It’s not normalised anymore but maybe it is more normal than we’re prepared for. It absolutely should be, particularly when this lazy trope of “it comes naturally” is so universally publicised. 

    Surprisingly, or perhaps not, wild bonobos have midwives and then also learn from each other how to feed their babies (Demuru,2018). The first gorillas and chimpanzees born in captivity had no idea that they had to feed their babies, never mind feed them from their own bodies. The first primates to understand were either shown by their zookeepers or had been born and raised in the wild before being taken into captivity (Gunthur, 1955). In these groups, feeding infants and mothers are all around and, given my experience with human toddlers, chimp toddlers will absolutely be watching and learning.

    Gunthur, M. (1955). Instinct and the nursing couple. Lancet. 19(268:6864), pp.575-8. 

    Demuru, E. Ferrari, P F. Palagi, E. (2018). Is birth attendance a uniquely human feature? New evidence suggests that Bonobo females protect and support the parturient. Evolution and Human Behavior. 39(5), pp.502-510.