Dear Friends:
    I worked with a mother today that had been battling  with her new baby 
for 2 weeks. She was doing everything that she had been taught  to do in the 
hospital: feeding on a 2-3 hour schedule, ramming the baby's head  onto the 
breast and holding it there tightly when the baby squirmed, and  waking the baby 
from a deep sleep so as not to go 'too long' between feeds. Both  of them were 
having a miserable time. She was getting to the point of pumping  and 
bottle-feeding when the baby became too upset to feed; she dreaded the  nights because 
they were the worst time.
    The mother was expecting the baby to nurse on one  side for 10-15 
minutes, get burped, and then nurse the other side fo 10-15  minutes. She was 
expecting this cycle to occur every 2-3 hours.
    I want to share with you all the comments she made  at the end of the 
consultation because they summarize everything so  nicely. As part of the visit, 
I interview the mother at the end of our time  together and ask her what she 
will remember to make breastfeeding better. I  write this down verbatim, and 
leave her a copy. (She also gets a daily telephone  call for a while, until 
breastfeeding is easy and fun. So she really doesn't  have to remember anything.)
    This mother said:
        1) "Be comfortable  myself."
        2) "Wait for her (i.e. the  baby) to decide what to do."
        3) "It takes longer than I  thought it would."
        4) "She has to like doing  it for breastfeeding to work."
        5) "She eats at her own  rhythm."
 
    warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Maternal-Child Adjunct  Faculty Union Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human  Lactation
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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