Lesli D. Mitchell MSW

My name is Lesli Mitchell, LCSW and I live in Southern California with my husband and daughter. My daughter is now 18 years old and I wrote Sally Weans From Night Nursing for her at 23 months. I wanted to help my daughter night wean in the most gentle way. As a mental health therapist, my goal was to be validating and supportive yet firm and clear. I recall feeling absolutely exhausted and needing sleep. My daughter and I co-slept and she nursed on average every hour and one half nightly. I still had to function in the day time and that became harder and harder for me the older and more active that she became. I noticed that I was not as present in the day and realized that I was not functioning at the level that I wanted to. I knew that night nursing was a very important part of her world and so I wanted to be as gentle as possible for her night weaning experience. I decided to first night wean her and then after that, day wean. I felt that night weaning was the most important for my functioning as her parent. I continued to day nurse her until she was almost 3, but I was able to successfully night wean her in 4 nights. She understood why we needed to wean and everyone was happy in the end. In the book, I describe specifically how we night weaned and all of the emotional feelings and thoughts I had regarding this shift in our relationship. In the end, it worked out really well and I felt good about it. I hope this book can be useful to you. It can be done, despite all of the painful feelings involved for both mom and child. It helped me to realize that as her mother, I will be helping her transition through many hard things. This book is also available in Spanish.

I have also written and illustrated Should I Make My Curly Hair Straight? This book was inspired by my daughter, whom is African-American, as well as my experience with my own hair. One day my daughter asked me, "How do Black people get their hair straight?" She was the only black girl at her school at the time and was interested in having straight hair. We were sitting in a restaurant when she asked the question and I began to draw out the different ways Black women typically straighten their hair on a napkin. I discussed each process, educating my five year old on the various tactics. When I was finished explaining, she very clearly said that she was not interested in any of the straightening tactics. It seemed that she was most dissuaded by the idea that one might not be able to swim or play in the fog after getting their hair flat ironed. I realized that no one had ever explained the process of hair straitening to me, what I would have to endure or that there would be certain activities "off limits" after getting my hair "done." It felt really important to me to write this book as a form of empowerment for children as they learn to understand and celebrate their hair as well as their choices.