Should I breastfeed?

Question

I am pregnant with our second child. My daughter is 5 and about a year ago my niece(11)was living with us and some things had come up and my daughter, just turned 4 had told me that her cousin (my niece) was pulling down her pants and undies at night and was touching her private and putting things on her private. We kicked my niece out and had my daughter examined and put through counseling.  We have absolutely no contact with my niece anymore. Now with all that happening to our daughter I'm so scared to nurse with her around because i don't want her to get mixed thoughts. She is being taught in counseling about good touches bad touches and stuff like that. I know it's natural and I'm just feeding my baby but I worry about my 5 year old and how she will react to it.  Any advice?  Please don't be mean, this is a very sensitive subject for us.

Answer

Talk to the counselor about wanting to breat feed and have her explain that it's good touch.

Answer

Being open about breast feeding around your daughter could be a good opportunity to show the "good touch" scenario. Breasts are sexualized by people not nature and you will have the choice to open a line of communication with her about that.

Answer

All good advice here so far.

My gut feeling is that approached properly and with support from the counselor, seeing you BF could be a very positive thing - especially if she sees that, while intimate, nothing is happening to you without your consent.

Answer

You should definitely breast feed. There is nothing sexual about breast feeding and you would be over cautious to even think so.  I'm very sorry this happened to you but you cannot be over cautious it will actually cause more hassle than good.

I have had similar experience with my children. I also had similar experiences when I was a child with other children. And I know friends that had similar experience. I think maybe no one likes to speak of it but it is normal. After seeing counselors and contacting phycologists I learned it's actually completely normal and the majority of children experiment with sexual play in early childhood. So long as it is not physically damaging to either child it is perfectly normal. 
It is actually our adult reaction that causes most issues with situations such as this It brings in guilt and Shame that should not be associated with play behaviour. 
Although it's a hard thin line for us as we want to protect our kids from such experiences especially with adult sexual behaviour.

I hope your niece and your daughter are ok now.

Please try not to dwell on things it sounds very innocent and both children would have likely forgotten about it very quickly if allowed.

Answer

As a side note, this got me thinking about how we could all benefit from thinking carefully about the example we set BFing and caring for a baby.

As someone said, it's common to teach children no touching at all (reasonably so for their safety). For slightly older children, like my 6yo, I wondered of there's a better way to distinguish between natural and necessary touching (eg changing a diaper) and unwanted scenarios.

A quick search led to a page of BFing friendly books for children from LaLecheLeague.  The URL is below, but since Glow doesn't make links in comments clickable, I'm also going to share this as a "link"  post under the General Pregnancy group.

http://www.lalecheleague.org/cbi/bfbookshort.htm

Answer

Have you tried talking to her counselor about it?  If it were me,  I'd explain it as a good touch for a mom and new baby and the benefits of it for the baby.

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following going thro a veary similar situation with my foster child

Answer

I'm very sorry for what your family is going through. I think you should do what you feel is best and most comfortable. Maybe see if you can get a 1 on 1 with her counselor and see if they can help with the explanation and such if you decide to BF.

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You should breastfeed. Teach her how ONLY mommies can breast feed so she doesn't get any thoughts. Teach her how it's a,good touch between a mommy and their baby.

Answer

I would say to talk to her counselor about it. My guess is that you shouldn't avoid breastfeeding because you'd want to show her that these are natural things. 
Also, I had to take a class about sexual abuse for a school job, and one of the things that stuck with me was to use the real word for body parts like vagina. For one, it helps kids be specific and clear if they need to tell someone if someone touched them. And saying words like private kind of enforces that there is some shame in having that body part. Good luck! Kids are resilient.

Should I breastfeed?

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