Signing for milk.
I love hearing all the names kids use for breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is such a special phase of a young child’s life that I think it only appropriate for them to name this important and intimate time.
My own daughter’s name for breastfeeding evolved over the couple months it took for her to create discernible letter sounds with her mouth. Of course every time she made a new sound I said it back to her. (This is actually an important part of the language acquisition process. Mimicking infant sounds helps babies feel confident about continuing to explore making new sounds and eventually mimic your words.)
This is how I remember it starting.
Daughter: “Nnn, nnn.” Then later… “Nnn, eeeee.”
Her vocalizations began increasing when she wanted to nurse, and I reinforced these sounds by responding and repeating them each time. Eventually, like Pavlov’s dogs, she and I both began associating the sound “nn-ee” with nursing. Add the cry sound “ahhh!” and you have “ahhh nn – ee!”
How cute, I thought. It sounds like she’s saying “Annie.” (Exciting because Annie is a real word, therefore making my daughter a genius at 6 months old. )
“Do you want some Annie?” I started asking her.
“Ahhh neeee,” she cried.
And that was how my daughter began calling nursing “Annie.”
As an aside, I’m not sure if I capitalize it because Annie is a proper name or if it’s because it’s an important name to my daughter. Either way though, I choose to distinguish breastfeeding names from breastfeeding words, relative to their distictive role in the child’s life.
Anyway, to this day, at five, if she sees another baby or toddler nursing she says, “He’s having Annie Mommy!” Or, “That Mommy has Annie!” She knows the real names for nursing or breastfeeding and breast milk, but I believe she recognizes and can distinguish the specialness of the breastfeeding relationship from the act itself. The only time she doesn’t call nursing Annie is when her little sister is nursing. My other daughter calls breast milk “milkies,” an evolution from “milk,” which is what I kind of wanted both of my children to call it. I thought it would make my life much easier if they began shouting for it in a public place. Because there’s no confusion when a toddler yells “Mommy I want booby!” Anyhow, without asking, my oldest daughter respects that “milkies” is her sister’s special word and calls it such when referring to her nursing.
Other names I have heard for breastfeeding are usually derivations of nurse such as nursies and nur-nur, or num, such as num-nums, nummies or mum-mums. Repetitive consonant-vowel sounds are also common, like me-me, na-na, ne-ne, nu-nu, and boo-boo. In addition, many parents are beginning to teach their babies the sign for milk, as sign language usually can be acquired at a younger age than spoken language. I like to think my own usage of the milk sign and other signs helped my daughter acquire her own early language skills.
Did you and your nursling have a special word for breastfeeding or a special name for breast milk? What was it?
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Tags: breast milk, breastfeeding words, language acquisition, names for breastfeeding, sign language
My son always called it “nurse” or “nurt” when he was littler and couldn’t pronounce the whole word – but he has always referred to my breasts as “nursies”. He weaned just shy of his 4th birthday (in July of this year) and he still refers to my breasts as “nursies.”
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My daughter’s not actually calling it anything yet, but the word we use (so far) is “goody,” which was coined by my nephew, who is now 25 years old!
My sister intended to use “num-num” but found herself telling him that it was “good, good!” when he nursed, so he started calling it “good-good.”
Then, when he was a toddler, tandem nursing with his baby sister, he switched to calling it “goody,” presumably because “good-good” was too babyish a word
It’s stuck, and that’s what I’ve told my daughter it’s called.
If she decides to change it, we’ll go with that, though.
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BOOB! That’s all he calls it. “Mama! Need da boob pweease!” whilst ripping my shirt open. Yes. Even in public. It’s gotten totally out of hand, but there’s no going back now. I keep trying to get him to call it “nurse” but boob seems much more fun.
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“Is she going to eat your naked?” This is how my three year old refers to his 10 month old little sister getting ready to nurse.
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Oddly, I can’t remember what Dominic called it (nurse, I think), but Philippe was strongly insistent on “BOOB”, always with capital letters. You haven’t lived until your fifteen-month-old tries to open your shirt in Loblaws, yelling “VEUX BOOB” all the while. I’ve never been so glad to live in an almost exclusively French-speaking area before or since.
We go with nummies and a homemade sign, a less awkward derivation of the ASL for “breastfeeding” (variation 2 here was just too much for me, but I wanted to save “milk” for cow’s milk). I chose an N-shape (for “nummies”) tapped on each side of the chest, like variation 1 in the above link. When my son does it, it just looks like he’s pointing to his chest, which is fine, too! It took him a long time before he could say or sign either clearly, but I always knew what he meant, anyway!
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You know, I had to think back a loonnnng way, as my son will be 18 (!!!) in January!
At different times, there were different names, but the earliest sounds my son made were “mmm” then “mmm mm-ummm”, which also seems to preceed the proud moment when he called me Mum the first time.
I do recall how he would get excited when we would sit down to nurse, and when he was wriggling with excitement, I would often tell him what I was doing to “prepare his meal”: “Just a moment; I have to undo my (nursing) bra!” and he started imitating the word “bra”! Not wishing that to become his new name for nursing (to match the stories I’d heard of little ones yelling “boobie!” etc. in public… but it was still amusing for such a tiny babe to be trying to say “ba!” then “bwah!”.
I think then it started to turn into my asking him if he wanted to nurse, so the above-mentioned “nus-nus” or “nuss” became more common, and as his language skills grew, turned into “nurse” – or something fairly close!
It might not be entirely “PC” but I do seem to recall there was some reference, even just between myself and his father, to “boob” – usually as in planning to give him some “boob” before we would go out or whatever. He picked up on this, calling it “boo” or “booboo”.
I never thought of this at the time as being “offensive” to some, but I recall a time when someone told me she always referred to *her* nursing as “breast” and “breastfeeding”, although she also said how her child learned to scream loudly in public “BREAST! BREAST!” until the child got the attention and/or food he/she was seeking. What I recall most from this story was this mom’s pride (and, I felt, implied insult at my use of the term “boo” with my son)that she was correctly naming body parts from birth… yet the child seemed unhappy in at least some respect (to me) since apparently the screaming was a common occurence! I certainly supported her choice, but did not appreciate her apparent judgement on mine. An early lesson in parenting differences and how some are quick to voice their views as though they were the only correct option…
Of course, breastfeeding is often a controversial subject and it hurt slightly to have someone even unwittingly insult my son and my special, close, early words for our wonderful nursing relationship.
By the way, my son was certainly educated as to the correct names for body parts and is a higly respectful young man now, yay!
My son used to hum as a way of asking to nurse, and also did so while he nursed. Now, he pants, like a puppy, whenever bedtime is near. xox
@Judy – I have a friend whose son weaned a couple years ago who still snuggles up to his Mommy’s breasts and pats them affectionately, calling them his special name.
Where on Earth did he get that from anyway? Old boob my butt!
@Whozat – I LOVE love LOVE the story of “goody!” Thanks for sharing it!
@TFB – Yes, I can imagine “booby” is more fun. More raised eyebrows to raise the ire of a good feminist maybe?
@Laviyah – Your comment made me laugh out loud! That is indeed a unique way of talking about breastfeeding.
@Elise – You tie for funniest story. And I’m guessing there’s a few non-French speakers out there so can I translate for you? – You old boob.
@Lisa – I’m sorry you were the victim of judgement. I don’t think any mom or child deserves to be criticized for their special nursing word. And “boo” or Boo-boo” is so far from something to judge anyway! Jeepers! I personally would have a hard time with my child asking for “boob” in public, but that’s just me. I embarrass easily, but I don’t harbour any judgement towards anyone else who might use it.
@Katy – Now that you mention it I have heard of this too. Another child I know used to pant. It was really cute.
This is a great post!
My oldest was born in Iowa in the late 90′s. The Hispanic population in our town was pretty low and so I felt very comfortable allowing my daughter to call breastfeeding ‘tetita’ (loose translation to little boob).
When my youngest was born we were in an area with a much more diverse population. No tetita for us. Breastfeeding became Mi-mi. Not sure why. We thought we were being original but I’ve since run into a ton of dyads that used Mi-mi as well. I now consider that we were in good company! =)
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My second son simply referred to it as the “Ba.” At 2 yrs the only way he would sleep was with the “ba”. With 2 boys 13.5 months apart, I was ready to get him off the Ba.
My Ob/gym told me that his wife had used “thumb” to wean all 3 of their kids. It is for thumb suckers – I had to try it first before my baby and it was yucky for sure. He said just put a little on your nipple, he will get a taste and that should do it.
Well I put it on there, had a sippy cup ready for him and after about 3 seconds he pulled away and said “yucky ba”. That was it, for a week or so he would look at my chest and say “Mommy have yucky ba” It was hilarious. So now at 2 1/2 he is sleeping through the night, finally…. and has forgotten all about the Ba.
I referred to it as “nurse” or “nursie” right from the beginning, but Lily had other ideas. As soon as she could start making clear syllables, she has called it “Boh-ti”, right along with the sign for it.
NO IDEA.
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My 2 year old says ‘Knee’. It is especially cute when he says it like a question ‘Knee?’
We do use the sign for milk, we avoid cows milk so there was not problem there.
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We call it milky. Started with the sign for milk, then it evolved from there. My 3 year old knows my boobs by many names, nipples, boobs, milkies. She occasionally still asks for milky, and I know when the new one arrives, B will teach it to call it milky.
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When my daughter was born, I called nursing “mama milk”. She shortened it to Mamma and it stuck, so when she started really talking, she said “I want some Mamma”.
Although it wasn’t the plan, it actually turned out to work really well, and people who didn’t know better simply thought she was asking for her mother.
I didn’t really realize until later that Mamma is the root of Mammal – animals who nurse their young. So my child was speaking Latin before her first birthday. She’ll go far
My 10 month old doesn’t call it anything yet, but when he wants to nurse he will come over and start sucking on my arm. Or if we are shopping, etc he will pick my hand up and start sucking on it. And then when I ask him, do you want to nurse? and start opening my shirt, he’ll start panting then.
@Naomi – That reminds me I wanted to share what happened when my daughter was learning body parts. We’d get to “knee” and I’d say “That’s your knee” or “That’s a knee”. “A knee?” she’d ask, looking very confused. I guess she thought I was saying that it was “Annie.” We’d tease asking “does milk come out of your knee?” She played along once she figured out the difference.
Shortly after ds was born, I started referring to my breasts as the “buffet”. He seemed to nurse frequently and I know size doesn’t matter, but my breasts are very small, so it seemed hard to believe they could provide enough. It was a sarcastic statement of my own doing and of course as he aged the name stuck. He began by saying “fay”, then “fuffay”, and now “buffet”. I also always pointed at my chest when asking if he wanted buffet, so he used that sign. One other thing I did without thinking was always tell him when we were switching sides. He chose about a year ago to always begin on the right side and then switch to the left. So, yep, now we have “buffet” on the right and “switch sides” on the left. I not only know what he wants, but which one he wants. lol Ah … kids …
Annie is such a sweet name.
We refer to it as ‘mama milk’. Or, at least, my older child did. At 16 months, my toddler doesn’t really have a name he uses yet. Unless you count pointing and grunting, which isn’t quite so specific.
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I’m so relieved that my kids have used discreet words, well discreet for me. My first son called it Motz, my second son calls it gogo (derived from côté: the other side!?) and I’m looking forward to seeing how my daughter will verbalize it. She just signs milk and like someone else mentioned, that isn’t too dicreet! Fun topic! Loved hearing other kids’ creative words and ways! Thanks
Great post idea!
My first son called it “nurse-a-minute” since I used to ask him if he wanted to nurse for a minute. My second son said “nurse”, sometimes shortened to “urse” and at times, “side”. Just the other day he buried his nose in my chest and started sniffing audibly (he’s been weaned for almost 3 months at age 30 months.) I asked, “What does it smell like?” “Happy,” he responded, “it smells like happy.”
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Cute story
We have always signed it and called it “mama’s milk” – so that’s what our son does too now. I love hearing him ask for “mama mil,” it is a sweet sound.
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My middle child and oldest daughter called it boob by the time she 17 months.My youngest at almost 21 months doesn’t call it anything.I’m trying to get her say milk and she used to sign ‘milk’ when she was younger.If she wants me she says,”Mummy down” Meaning Mummy sit down.I certainly won’t encourage her to say boob.Not because I’m prudish, but I do not want a screaming toddler repeating it over and over like my oldest daughter did.Thank you for this post and sharing
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My son is only 8 months so we don’t have a real word for nursing yet (we haven’t even gotten “mama” yet) but I call breastfeeding “snacks” or “snacky-snacks”. As in “do you want a snack?” My son has started vocalizing “sna na nana” on a regular basis so I think we’ll end up with some version of that as our word. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up with BOOB.
I’d love to see all the signs people use for nursing, since I hate using the one for “milk” and don’t want to use “hungry”, as that could mean food as well as breastfeeding.
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My 20 mos old calls is “Milten”, which is his pronunciation of “Milkies”.
He gets this real soft, baby-googly eyes look on his face every time and asks, “Miltens?” Like I can ever say no to that!
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Gwen signs “milk”, and I always call nursing “milk”, so I assume at some point she’ll call it that as well? Although she’s got about 50 – 75 words now and she doesn’t often try to say it. She has said “mil” once or twice in the last week, but normally she signs it and I’ll ask “would you like some milk?” and she’ll nod with this huge grin on her face and snuggle into me
My little boobie monster called nursing his “Boom, Boom” I’m not sure how it happened but he’s called it that since he was 10 months. We weaned 5 months ago and he still squeezes, snuggles, and announces to everyone and anyone that will listen “Mama boom boom.” Most people get embarrassed or just laugh…I love it, it’s too cute and funny!
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My husband and I name them boo-boos. I’m not sure where this came from but it will be interesting to see how my son chooses to name them when he starts to talk.
My daughter is a week shy of 11 months, so she doesn’t have a word for nursing yet. However, if she wants milk, or if I ask her if she wants some milk, she will make this frantic, almost laughing sound like “heh, heh, heh!!”
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Although we called it nuk nuks, DS came up with his own name for it and it stuck. He called it kong kongs (which I think came from my telling him to “calm calm” as I was getting my bra unlatched).
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Before our son, Maddox, was born we found out we were to be stationed in Italy. I figured, latte (Italian for milk) would be a fun word to use. My son is now 19 months and just noticed him starting to say “ah-tee” after I would say “latte”. Yesterday he actually pointed at my breast and said “ah-tee, food!” I had to laugh and said “yes, latte, food”
@Desiree~ my son did the same thing for the longest time when I would get him into the position to nurse. Kindof seemed like he was just getting so excited cause he knew what was coming!