Christine writes:

My  sister mostly wants to know if she can reasonably expect this to change 
or if  she should even try.  Emotionally she feels she can work through her 
 self-defined frustration and sadness; she welcomes any and all thoughts on 
her  situation.  
~~~
Hi Christine and all,
 
Having "only" had two children, and them being SO different right from the  
beginning, I think it was easier for me to adjust to their differences. 
First  was hospital-born, managed ( pretty aggressively I saw in retrospect) by 
a  midwife, no rooming-in after 10 PM so lots of mother-baby separation, 
baby given  AIM behind my back, then discharged in pretty much full-on breast 
refusal. With  the help of a local LLLL/IBCLC he became a happy, 
breastfeeding baby. Couldn't  fall asleep without nursing, and woke up every 2 hours 
for nearly 4  years. So, when his home-born,  nursing right away, sister 
arrived, and was  presented with a let-down like Niagara Falls, her strategy 
seemed to be to nurse  as quickly as he did ( about 5 minutes on one side only), 
but then suck her own  thumb. Her brother met his needs at breast, never 
sucked his thumb. She also had  a higher palate at birth, different dentition, 
and different sucking needs with  a different way of meeting them. She also 
didn't need to nurse to sleep, which I  had no experience with. I would 
look down and notice that a few minutes after  nursing and she let go, she 
would have drifted off to sleep in my arms. SO weird  for me, so different. She 
also slept about 5 hours straight, from the first  night she was delivered. 
After getting up every 2 hours for almost 4 years, I  was kind of ecstatic 
and figured they were just different. She nursed  til she was 3, but in a 
very different style than her brother. Looking back, I  probably had overactive 
letdown especially with her, but at the time there was  no name for it, we 
figured it out in the best way we could, she would begin to  nurse, pull off 
and wait patiently while she got totally sprayed in the face, or  I grabbed 
a towel to soak up the jetting milk she knew was too fast for her. She  
just hung out and went on a minute or so in when things were slower. In time,  
the flow regulated, but she didn't change in infancy, as far as seeking out 
the  breast for comfort the way her brother did. Now a young adult:  She is  
loving and well-connected and a recent CST visit  prompted my colleague to 
remark that she is "very aware of" her body  for someone her age (20). I 
took that as a very good  thing.   As a toddler, her nursings were sweet but 
short and  didn't have the urgency of her brother's. To this day, he is a much 
more  intense person, while she is calmer overall. Different approaches to 
life, right  from the start. I don't know if that helps, but there it is...:)
 
Peace,
Judy
 
 
Judy LeVan  Fram, PT, IBCLC, LLLL
Brooklyn, NY,  USA
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