Chloe is the angel that sits on my shoulder at every consult ("What would
Chloe do here?")  I have 5 copies of her book that I loan to clients.  Her
positioning ideas are the ones that work best for me.  And yet...

Am I right in thinking that Chloe has no children of her own?  I've seen
babies who weren't nursing well finally get a good latch, pig out, fall
off in a stupor and sleep blissfully for several hours, for the first
time in their lives.  I wonder if this is the kind of situation Chloe sees
over and over:  babies who have finally gotten a bellyful and slide off to
contemplate it at length.

My own babies, who lacked neither for milk nor talent in extracting it,
nursed for umpteen reasons besides hunger and thirst, and I couldn't begin
to count the number per day.  Besides, is the "feeding" that took place on
one breast, to be followed 10 minutes later by a quick snack on the other
side two "feedings" or one?  I would never have known where to draw the line.
I finally realized that I never "fed" my babies.  They nursed for so many
other reasons - theirs and mine - that outright hunger was probably rarely
an issue.

So, although Chloe is my patron saint, I mightn't take her word for how
many times a day a real-life, 24 hour a day baby nurses in a family with other
children, dogs, car pools, cooking, housework, and phone calls.  At our
house it was probably more like 30 or 40.  Who knows?  Who cares?
As someone else said, look at the whole picture and make sure the baby is
getting what he needs, then support whatever pattern mother/baby/family
seem to need.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL, Ithaca, NY