I commented that we had been doing this since 5 am. As usual, I had a lot of my mama friends comment on how their day was exactly the same: breastfeeding a toddler non stop. Recently, I have been expressing my surprise at reaching the 2 year mark in my breastfeeding journey and finding that I'm actually nursing far more than any readings ever stated. On top of the constancy, comes all of the added elements of general toddler behaviour such as jumping, twisting, turning, kicking, biting, giggling, and the list goes on. All while breastfeeding. Where are the articles that talk about this stage of breastfeeding? Why hadn't I read about it before reaching this point? Why when I searched the key words Tandem Nursing on Amazon is there only ONE book listed? More and more women are nursing their toddlers and therefore, I know the information is out there to be shared. We just need to start sharing!
A friend of mine and fellow writer Julie shared her interest in joining me in a venture of creating an outlet for these untold stories and articles of information. Over the last two days we have been brainstorming and this is where we are at currently.
We are creating a zine, which is a small, independent magazine, with a focus on breastfeeding. In particular, this first volume will focus on full term, or extended, or toddler breastfeeding. As we develop our ideas more fully we will update everyone as to what it is called, what it will look like, dates for release and future publications. Currently, we are looking for submissions of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry with the topic of toddler breastfeeding. If you would like to submit something more on the "How to" spectrum, please keep it to relevant topics such as night weaning, nursling etiquette, tandem nursing, nursing through pregnancy, or other issues arising from the toddler age during breastfeeding.
Submissions should be no longer than 1500 words and can be emailed to nursingtoddlerstories@gmail.com. Deadline is February 15th with a projected release date of the zine for end of April, beginning of May. Please email any questions or concerns before submitting and we would be happy to answer as best we can. We will email everyone once we have chosen all of the stories for this first volume. Unfortunately we are unable to pay at this point but if we go as far as we plan to, everyone will receive some compensation along the way!
We are really excited to start this unique and needed project in order to share stories, advice and comfort among the growing community of breastfeeding mothers. We hope you are excited too! Stay tuned for more updates and sneak peeks as the project progresses.
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