>Magda
I hope it did not appear I was saying "every 5 hours" is okay.....but,
rather
that waiting 5 hours to feed a baby because he is sleeping is not always
okay.  If they waited for baby to wake...and some babies do not...then in
the
early weeks it would be impossible to get 8-12 feedings in a 24 hour time
period.
Sharon<

Sharon, it sounds like you mean that you want the baby to feed every five
hours, minimum.

What I guess you have not heard me say clearly is that I don't understand
why.  I also don't understand how this relates to breastfeeding as I
experienced it and as it can be experienced by women, especially if they
allow themselves to experience it fresh, and not through the frame of
expectations imposed by our medicalised culture.

If my baby comes to the breast and suckles for 3 minutes and is then
contented, is that a feed? Does that let me allow the baby to go for another
five hours if she wishes to sleep for that length of time?  If my baby comes
to the breast for 3 minutes, then sleeps for 30 minutes then feeds for 17
minutes then sleeps for 2 hours and then suckles for 7 minutes, is that
three of the 8 feeds I must make sure she has in 24 hours?  Or is it two and
a half?  If my baby feeds for several short bursts within an hour, is that
one feed with pauses or three or four feeds?

This labeling of experience through the medium of time and number of 'feeds'
distorts the reality of breastfeeding.  Some of the intent may be benign
when lcs do it, but the basic premise is what I question.  Do we really know
what the limits of 'normal' are?  Are we rushing in where angels might fear
to
tread?

I have supported a woman whose baby fed 3 or 4 times in 24 hours, and fed
for
about 5 minutes each time -- the feeling for the mother was powerful and
verged on the painful -- we had to get the positioning and attachment spot
on for comfort.  I had a postcard (the father had been posted overseas)
months later to say they were still breastfeeding.  What would have happened

if I had insisted on the baby feeding a minimum of 8 times in 24 hrs???

In my own first breastfeeding experience it would have been laughable to
have restricted my son to 12 times of latching on for a feed in 24 hours.
As he was given fairly free access to the breast,  he had what he needed,
but giving him this involved lying to various health professionals about how
often he fed -- why should I have been in that position?  I *knew* that if I
told anyone how often he fed, they would interfere, and if I had had support
for what I was doing it would have been easier.

If we regard breastfeeding as belonging in the domain of the
professionals -- including the lactation professionals -- then we will
continue to impose rules of time and measurement on babies and their
mothers.  If we see our role as supporting women, in whose domain
breastfeeding still falls, as it has done for millenia, then we might see
these rules as inherently unhelpful.  What has time to do with the
breastfeeding experience?  There is no linear relationship.

Yes, sometimes you get babies who need to come to the breast more often to
stimulate their mother's supply.  Maybe they even conform to the rule of 8 -
12 feeds in 24 hrs, but when this rule of thumb for certain situations
becomes a rule for all babies and women, it seems to me to reproduce so many
mistakes of the past.  We have a duty to be careful that our 'authoritative
knowledge' about breastfeeding is not only based on reality, but is used to
support breastfeeding, not to own and control it.

Perhaps in societies where breastfeeding knowledge is lost and our
understanding is occluded by centuries of ignorance and misunderstanding,
some of these rules will help. but I worry intensely that they will become
seen to be reality, rather than ways of salvaging breastfeeding from even
worse rules of thumb which have been imposed on women and internalised by
women so that they impose them on themselves.

It may seem a luxury to worry about this stuff when you/I/we are at the
coalface of helping a mother, but if we ignore this, we are never going to
get anywhere.  In my opinion.

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK

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