Reva Rubin wrote a very thought-provoking book back in 1961 about the
attainment of the maternal role. (Wish I'd bought it two years ago when
working on my MA - it was $75, now it's $275!)
One of the challenges of working with new moms in the hospital is that they
are, at first, in the taking in stage. They need to talk about their births,
be nurtured, and stare at their babies. That's about all they seem to "take
in!"!
Rubin says that during these early days (taking hold in those days was days
3-10, now it probably starts a bit sooner), nurses are "experts" as far as
the mom is concerned, and moms want to know the RIGHT WAY to do things.
(Yes, I think I am shouting.)
As a mom and LLLL, I know that every baby is different. But I will tell you,
first-time moms in this very tender time very seldom want to know that there
are lots of right ways to do things. They don't want to hear an array of
ideas on anything. "Just tell me how to do it." "That's not what my other
nurse said."
I have had to re-think my teaching strategies (I went from mom to LLLL to
independent-practice IBCLC to nurse/IBCLC in the hospital) to present good
info to these new moms. A mom with a month old baby knows her baby and
herself a lot better than she did at 24 hours. This is probably another
reason why we are all approaching "methods" with different assumptions. And
probably one of the reasons HBOTB is so popular with new parents. (Now don't
you wish you had a method for dealing with your teens and young adults!)

Dawn Kersula - who shamefacedly admits I gave my grandson a pacifier at 3
weeks when we couldn't get him to stop crying over his mom's fire-hose
letdown reflex!!!

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