leslie's list is excellent, and brings to mind something i see too often, and
it is very depressing. often the course of breastfeeding has NOT been normal,
the mother has been trying to schedule feeds and sleep and basically coerce
the baby into a schedule or system that involves a great deal of struggle.
often these babies get pacifiers or have had weight gain that doesn't seem
optimal in retrospect.

i didn't come up with this beautiful description, someone else posted this on
lactnet, but i think of it often because it really describes what is going
on. sometimes a baby gets tired of having to negotiate for every feed. i
think this can happen at various times. when breastfeeding IS going normally,
these life events that leslie is reminding us of can be the thing that causes
a baby to have trouble for a while, because he is feeling unduly stressed by
the difficulties of getting the kind of response from mom that he is used to
while the stressful thing is going on.

when a baby tells me "i can't do this anymore," i really want to know why
not. its a mystery and part of what keeps this work interesting (and
challenging!).

carol brussel IBCLC

             ***********************************************
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