As someone who took her first nursing child to classes (as a student), backpacking around Europe at age 10 months, to Africa to do research (15 months to 3 years), and then with her last nursing child to classes (as a teacher), to office hours, to dissertation defenses, to parks and libraries and grocery stores and friends' houses and on vacations, etc. etc. etc. -- I always thought it was way more convenient NOT to have a schedule. I learned from Malian women to let my children nurse when they wanted -- whereever we happened to be, to do 'pre-emptive nursing' if I needed to have some time without them nursing (like "Come and nurse now, because then we have to drive to Indianapolis" or "Come and nurse now, because I want to go to the gym in a few minutes), to let them sleep when they were tired, wherever they happened to be, as long as I was there, etc. etc. etc. In contrast, I knew people who HAD to be available to nurse for a 20-30 minute stretch every 4 hours, regardless of what else they might need to be doing at that time. And who HAD to be at home at 10 am and 2 pm so their children could take naps at home, in their own beds, because they wouldn't sleep anywhere else, and would just go to sleep when tired, but got crankier and crankier. And kids who HAD to have their blankies, while my children were happy to have *only* mom. Thus, while schedules are often promoted as giving the mother more time and being more convenient for her, I think they often are not, because then she is tied to the schedule. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html