Katie’s little boy, Dylan, is six weeks old and she’s just coming to the end of her “lying in”. She’s had friends over to cook and help with basic chores, her other half, Paul, has also had this time off work, she’s done very little except constantly breastfeed little Dylan and get out every day for some lovely fresh air with Dylan in one of his many slings. He feeds well, and is starting to get to that stage where he’s smiling at Mum and Dad… if they really work hard for it, that is!
Dylan sleeps long periods in the sling, and sleeps with Mum and Dad at night. He’s started to “sleep through the night”. Of course to Paul and Katie, this means that he goes upstairs with them at ten, feeds little and often in a state of light sleep and finally wakes for the day at about eight o’clock. He no longer has dirty nappies in the night so Katie just wraps him up in a huge bamboo nappy with a massive booster pad and he doesn’t then need changing.
Katie’s considering going back to work in about another six weeks. Paul is definitely going back to work.
Seven weeks later Dylan is starting to be much more interested in what’s going on around him. There’s the photocopier, which makes interesting noises, the computer, where Mum Katie is always typing away, the telephone, where she seems to speak to people who aren’t there… it’s most interesting.
Dylan sits in the sling for most of the day, apart from for nappy changes. Whenever Mum thinks he’s about to cry, she plugs him into her milk and away he goes. Katie tries to do as much moving around as possible, as Dylan likes the movement.
In a few months’ time she knows he will be big enough to play in the middle of the huge, circular, open plan office, designed specifically with babies and toddlers in mind. He’ll happily play away with toys and if he needs Mum… he will be able to come and get her. Often a toddler or child is seen rushing to Mum for a “comfort break”; a quick, five minute breastfeeding session to help with a banged knee, or a tired irritable infant. But for now Dylan sits in the sling.
Katie – like everyone, including Dad – works a four day week, nine until five, with an hour and a half for lunch. That’s enough time to enable her and Paul to get home for a meal with baby Dylan onlooking, catch up and give Dylan some Daddy time, and get back to work, as, like most people in breastfeeding utopia, they live locally to where they work; there are schemes in place to encourage this; it’s great for the environment but also great for family life and for children.
And with thirty holidays a year, Katie and Paul get ample time to spend as a family, including Dylan’s Nan, Gran, Grandpa and Granddad, not to mention various Aunties and Uncles (whether related or not)!
The great thing is, because Katie and Paul are happy and not at all guilty about the amount of time they spend bringing up Dylan, they work really hard and get so much done in the time they’re in work.
School doesn’t start here until children are seven years of age; by this time most of these children are at the stage of weaning, or have already weaned; until a child is seven here, it is welcome with its parent at work. There is more of a “creche” facility for the children over four here, with workers taking turns looking after the children, although they are of course welcome to return to their parent at any time. It’s still more often the mother who takes the child to work, as usually these children are breastfed, but because the Mum doesn’t have to choose between work and career… she doesn’t mind.
Jackie has a highly survival adapted baby called Rebekah. Jackie decides not to return to her previous office role but to take up a job as a shop assistant which involves a lot of time on her feet, walking around, as this is what Rebekah likes and what settles her when she’s in the sling. She takes a full year to look after Rebekah; Jackie would tell you that looking after Rebekah is a “job in itself”.
The year off work is of course paid at SNP (statutory nursing pay) which is the equivalent salary of what here would be about £18,000 (plus London weighting for those in the capital). That’s in addition to her maternity leave, which starts two months before her due date and during which time she receives full pay until the baby is born.
Sharon is due to give birth. The thing is, she just doesn’t want to breastfeed. That’s despite it being the cultural norm here in breastfeeding utopia, despite there being so much support here that it’s almost impossible not to be able to do it, despite breasts not being seen as primarily sexual objects here in breastfeeding utopia, despite all that… she just finds something strange about it.
It’s certainly unusual here. She has no problem with giving birth and other baby-related natural functions, just this. She just “has a thing” about breasts, in the same way someone in our world might “have a thing” about feet, and never want to show them, even on a hot sunny day.
No one makes a fuss though, or calls her a bad mother. It’s understood that she just doesn’t want to and it’s rare enough that she, along with low supply Mums & babies with physiological difficulties that prevent breastfeeding, is able to get donor milk to feed her baby.
But we started with Katie. In a few years’ time she will go on to have another baby, Tanya, at home, just like Dylan, who weaned himself at four and a half when he decided he didn’t want milk any more. In fact that was the first she knew that Tanya was on the way, because Dylan told her her milk tasted funny. She will take the full eighteen months with Tanya (longer SNP with a second baby) and then return to work, just before Dylan is ready to go to school. She hand expresses a little milk every time Dylan has a cold; she openly hoped he might return to breastfeeding when he saw Tanya at the breast but that didn’t happen, so she phoned one of the helplines to tell them her dilemma.
There aren’t as many peer supporters and breastfeeding counsellors now. Knowledge of breastfeeding is everywhere and there aren’t many problems that other mothers can’t solve or support with. But the lines are open more for emotional support when children wean themselves, as some Mums still find this a little hard, especially if it seems to happen quite suddenly.
Katie gets a shoulder to cry on, and then goes back to her busy life with Dylan and Katie, and hubs Paul. She is happy. This is breastfeeding utopia.
