World Breastfeeding Week!!!

For those who dont already know this it is World Breastfeeding Week! Thats right WORLD not national but the whole world! It is celebrated from August 1st to the 7th and it celebrates when the Innocenti Declaration, http://www.unicef.org/programme/breastfeeding/innocenti.htm, was signed.

Here is an excerpt from the declaration:

"As a global goal for optimal maternal and child health and nutrition, all women should be enabled to practise exclusive breastfeeding and all infants should be fed exclusively on breastmilk from birth to 4-6 months of age. Thereafter, children should continue to be breastfed, while receiving appropriate and adequate complementary foods, for up to two years of age or beyond. This child-feeding ideal is to be achieved by creating an appropriate environment of awareness and support so that women can breastfeed in this manner."

How AWESOME is that?? Little Miss Charle is 21 months old and still breastfeeds. She will continue to do so until she SELF weans. I will not wean her myself. Yes there are times when I tell her "no Charle not right now" but now that she is gaining the weight she needs to I will continue to nurse her. My Pedi is supportive of my choice as is my husband and now I have friends that are as well. I LOVE LLL, Le Leche League, they are a GREAT group and I have learned so much from the women there.

On Saturday the 2nd the family and our new good friend Jessica went to a Breastfeeding Celebration in Everett at Forest Park, which is an awesome place but thats another blog :P, at the Celebration they had all sorts of booths you could go to for information on so many different things. They also had a silent auction that had AWESOME things! All the proceeds went straight to benefiting LLL, which once again is an awesome group. It was so much fun they had a lot of kid activities and Charle got a super cute shirt that says "I eat at Moms" :P LOL I cant wait to get a picture of her in it to post on here, but my camera is like super busted so it'll have to wait until I can buy a new one. All and all we had a great time. After the celebration we went out to eat then toy shopping, Dom and Rach at Toys R US and Jessica, her baby Sophie (who is adorable!), Charle and me at Micheals (which is just like a toy store for me lol) the girls didnt get any toys, besides the one they dont know about thats being hidden :P. The girls slept LONG and hard that night....it was really fun, lol have I said that enough lol.

If you would like to donate to LLL you can do so here, http://www.llli.org/donate.html?m=3, it is just such a great support group for nursing moms. And I am so happy I get to be a part of it.