00:00 I tandem breastfeed my five and two-year-old.
00:02 My dream is to let my children decide when to stop.
00:05 This is a lot easier than washing dishes and bottles.
00:08 There is a lot of negativity surrounding breastfeeding.
00:11 Hold on.
00:11 Feeding my children is going to turn them into serial killers?
00:15 I can't even... I have nothing to say to that.
00:18 You want to crack the eggs?
00:22 My name is Charlotte and I tandem breastfeed my five and two-year-old.
00:25 Would you like me to help you?
00:27 You want to break it?
00:30 Can I do another one?
00:31 You sure can.
00:32 We can control whether or not we have positive or negative thoughts, right?
00:36 I am a certified health and wellness coach.
00:38 How many times you smile today, you can control that.
00:42 Give it a good whack.
00:43 There you go.
00:44 You want to crack one, buddy?
00:45 I need help.
00:47 Help.
00:48 My oldest is Racian and my youngest is Malachi.
00:51 Let's keep it in there.
00:53 In a cup?
00:57 No, no!
00:59 How old are you?
01:00 I'm five. Malachi is two.
01:03 I love you so much.
01:05 I love you too.
01:06 Who's better at cooking?
01:08 Me.
01:09 Is it mommy or daddy?
01:10 Um...
01:11 You still?
01:13 Yeah.
01:15 Tell me about a typical morning at home.
01:17 Um...
01:19 Well, a typical morning for us is we let our bodies wake us up.
01:22 We're blessed to work from home.
01:24 We don't have alarms, which is a beautiful thing.
01:27 Daddy, vegetables go to numbers.
01:30 We can adjust our times to be able to sleep in,
01:33 so we both sleep with our kids and we wake up around the same time.
01:37 A typical morning starts off nursing together,
01:40 getting breast milk, and then going to the kitchen to cook.
01:44 Slow mornings are our favorite.
01:49 I always knew that I wanted to breastfeed.
01:51 My experience with breastfeeding my daughter was not the easiest.
01:56 She had something called torticollis,
01:58 which is the shortening of the muscle in your neck.
02:00 We struggled a lot, and we overcame that together.
02:04 After the first four months, I was doing really well,
02:09 and then just kept going from there.
02:11 This child does not sleep, therefore mama doesn't sleep.
02:14 How did you decide to do extended breastfeeding?
02:17 I had this dream of doing full-term breastfeeding
02:19 where she would stop when she's ready.
02:21 And I know that if the time comes where I'm ready,
02:25 then we'll of course adjust accordingly.
02:28 I really wanted another child.
02:30 And as soon as I heard that it was possible to breastfeed
02:33 during pregnancy and even tandem breastfeed afterwards,
02:36 it's just like something clicked.
02:38 I loved it during pregnancy
02:40 because I didn't have to chase a toddler around.
02:42 Tandem breastfeeding is when you breastfeed multiple children,
02:45 generally two.
02:46 In my case, my kids are three years apart.
02:48 You can either breastfeed them together at the same time
02:51 or one at a time.
02:52 My decision to tandem breastfeed was totally a God moment
02:55 because it was placed on my mind and my heart
02:57 that that's something that I would be doing.
02:59 I started tandem breastfeeding the day that I gave birth to my son.
03:03 I knew that I wanted to try
03:05 and to achieve a few months of it at least.
03:07 This is like a guaranteed rest every day for a mom.
03:12 There's another benefit.
03:14 I would love to make it more well-known
03:16 that the benefits of breastfeeding don't stop
03:19 at six months or at one year or at two years.
03:21 Mom, watch this!
03:24 There's nutritional benefits, there's behavioral benefits,
03:27 emotional, social, and cognitive.
03:30 I don't believe our kids get as sick as other kids do.
03:35 I think they have a closer bond
03:37 because of our decision to tandem breastfeed.
03:40 You know, they sit still for a while
03:42 and stare at each other in the face.
03:44 At the beginning, they would hold hands while they tandem breastfed.
03:47 Man, that's a heartwarming moment for a mother.
03:49 My dream is to let my children decide when to stop.
03:52 At one point, I thought maybe he would wean before she did,
03:55 which would have been kind of wild.
03:57 But I also know that when either party is ready,
04:00 there needs to become a mutual understanding and agreement.
04:03 But it doesn't look like there's any stopping anytime soon.
04:09 The current parenting style that I identify with most
04:14 is secure attachment parenting.
04:16 Can you hold it up? Hold it up.
04:18 There you go.
04:20 Can I hold that?
04:22 Watch this!
04:24 You respond to the needs of the child.
04:26 I see green and green and green and more green.
04:31 But you also give them space to explore.
04:34 Am I the umbrella holder? Yeah.
04:36 Do I look like an umbrella holder? Yeah.
04:38 It aligns with my motherly instincts.
04:42 It's a balance that maybe not everyone understands or agrees with,
04:47 but it works for me.
04:49 How do you feel about Charlotte's breastfeeding?
04:51 I find that it works really, really well, in fact.
04:53 I trust her judgment.
04:55 I think there's hardships with everything,
04:57 but parenting is being there for our kids.
05:00 I started sharing my breastfeeding journey online
05:03 because there was just a lack of support
05:05 and a lack of community out there for breastfeeding moms,
05:07 not that I could find at the time.
05:09 And I also wanted some support
05:11 as my daughter had such struggles latching.
05:14 The majority of my comments and encouragement that I receive
05:18 is positivity, but for every positive person,
05:20 there seems to be a negative person.
05:23 Not quite a ratio of 50/50, but there is a lot of negativity.
05:27 Why do you still let your kids breastfeed at their age?
05:30 It just seems unhealthy. Your kids will be too dependent.
05:34 Oh.
05:35 You look up secure attachment.
05:37 There's a reason why we do what we do.
05:39 If the kids know that their needs are met,
05:42 you get a sexual pleasure from it and justify it with parenting.
05:46 That's...wow. That's so sad.
05:49 Sometimes I think mom gets addicted to having her breasts sucked on.
05:53 That's lovely.
05:54 The typical, "She's doing it for her benefit and not the kids,"
05:58 and that's absurd 'cause they don't have the understanding or knowledge.
06:01 Why should we so feed them until they're ready for marriage?
06:06 I can't even...I have nothing to say to that.
06:08 There's been comments where people say, "Just give her a sippy cup."
06:13 And I would say, "Are you coming over to wash the sippy cup?"
06:18 'Cause this is a lot easier than washing dishes and bottles.
06:21 A gal said, "What's going to happen when these children grow up
06:24 "and they look back and see these images that you've shared on your social media?
06:29 "What are they going to think?"
06:31 And I said, "Well, they're going to be empowered."
06:33 [laughs]
06:35 [baby cooing]
06:37 That's truly how I feel about that.
06:39 I haven't had anybody come up to me and try to scold me,
06:42 but just some looks here and there, more shock than disgust.
06:50 And then I get comments like, "You are an amazing mom.
06:52 "I think it's a wonderful bond you have with your kids.
06:54 "You're doing a great job, Mama."
06:56 Oh, yeah, look at Mama go.
07:01 And if I can help just one person, then that's enough for me.
07:06 I continue to share my journey because it's ever-changing.
07:10 I want to knock it over.
07:12 And I went from feeding just one to two,
07:15 and it's probably the most important and beautiful thing I've done to date.
07:19 I want to continue my journey, so if a mom wants to continue to breastfeed,
07:24 I hope that my journey inspires them to do so.
07:26 Look, a bow dash!
07:30 I've never known a high school kid to still be breastfeeding, or a college kid,
07:35 so one day my children will stop breastfeeding
07:38 and maybe go on to have children in a family of their own.
07:41 I hope that they can look back on what Mom did
07:44 and be inspired and proud as she shared her journey with integrity
07:48 and love to support other moms.
07:50 Two, three, go!
07:53 [cheering]
07:55 [laughing]
07:58 That's a comfy!
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