Mayim Bialik has been breastfeeding her son Fred for the past four years, and now their bonding time has come to an finish. In a Feb. 6 blog put up for Jewish parenting website online Kveller, the lately unmarried Big Bang Theory actress detailed how she after all weaned her little boy.
"Well, nay-sayers, prepare to be proven wrong. All of you snarky mamas who glared at me nursing my 3 1/2-year-old on the NYC subway, prepare to be amazed. And to all of my family and friends who wanted to chastise me about nursing a walking, talking, thinking, laughing little man named Fred, thanks for holding your tongues," Bialik, 37, wrote. "Because we did it. Fred isn't going to nurse on his way down the wedding aisle or at his high school graduation. I didn't need to break him of a 'habit' and teach him 'who's in charge.' I didn't need to set boundaries you thought I should have set when I didn't want to set them. Because we did it: Fred weaned."
Bialik — also mom to 7-year-old son Miles with ex Michael Stone — says it came about round Thanksgiving, "days prior to I released the public statement that I was getting divorced."
"From the time that Fred night-weaned a year ago, he was nursing about once a day, but not always once a day. Sometimes he'd go a few days without nursing. After night-weaning, he could nurse anywhere but in the bed, since it invariably made him think of nursing all night, which he did like a real champ for his entire happy milky life until he was 3. And I didn't want to go back to that!" the Blossom actress explains. "I nursed Fred four to six times a night for three years. I pumped at work for Fred from the time I got the job on The Big Bang Theory when he was 18 months old until he was 3. . . I didn't nurse him literally anywhere, anytime, but I made sure to meet his needs and have mine satisfied as well."
Though she "had difficulty nursing both of my boys," Bialik believes it supplied "the best nutrition, nurturing and bonding ever." Towards the top of her breastfeeding, Fred "typically nursed from both sides since I was prone to clogged ducts for most of our nursing relationship," the star explains.
"It wasn't until much more recently — it's been three months now since he nursed — that he asked to nurse. But now when he asks, he knows it's funny," the Beyond the Sling writer says of Fred. "That he's a big boy. That he doesn't drink 'nummies' anymore."
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The transition has been hard for Bialik, whose different TV credit come with The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Curb Your Enthusiasm. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss being able to latch him on and make it all better. We have other ways to soothe Fred now," she writes. "When he's very very upset or very very hurt, we lay on the couch where he nursed countless mornings, afternoons and evenings, and we rock and I sing to him his favorite lullabies. And he holds me tight, and I hold him tight, and I know that there was never ever ever anything wrong with nursing Fred."
A longtime proponent of "attachment parenting," Bialik knows her resolution to breastfeed her son until age 4 is controversial. "Even when people laughed and sneered and accused me of horrible things no mother should ever be accused of when tending to the normal and beautiful needs of her mammal child," the actress writes. "It was never wrong and it was always right."
The vegan mom of two ended her weblog submit with a message for her youngest son: "Go out into the scary wonderful crazy broken world, sweet tender Fred. Take your fear and conquer it, and come back to me when it's too much for you. I may not have milk to give you, but I have a heart forever etched with your name, your face, your eyes, your impossibly stunning tapered lashes that hold the tears only you can cry. Thank you, Fred, for being my nursling."
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