It is Friday and I have the week-end off so I can tune in seriously to
Lactnet ( day off?) The thread about what new moms can and can't absorb
has me thinking. You want to tell me that the lectures I give EVERY
morning to a roomful of moms may be going directly into the trash bin in
their brains?
If so then we have to rethink how to present the info. I will often
speak to moms several months after birth for various questions and they
do seem to remember certain parts of my lecture. Mostly the parts that
are funny.
I agree with Cathy (welcome back, we missed you), that you have to
choose carefully the points that you want to get across and stick with
them. Present them factually and with a sense of humour......not too
funny cause the C-section moms can't laugh.
For example, I start by telling them that they will now learn to look at
their baby and not the clock, scale, or any other instrument with
numbers to breastfeed.
So of course we do hunger cues first and after I demonstrate them, I
have everyone do them with me.......it is a riot to see a room full of
adults rooting and smacking their lips, and sucking their fists....and
they remember that forever.
Next the issue of how long on each side. For that one I ask them if
when they got married if they asked their new mother-in-law how long to
let her son eat at meals...." Should I take his plate after 5 minutes,
7, 12.5 or 20?" So if not then how do you know how long to give
him? Aha! Then we do the foremilk-hind milk issue briefly and normal
nursing patterns, but we already have them thinking watch the baby not
the clock. I also do growth spurts with husband analogies and they
laugh and remember.
Next point: signs of satiety. Also a little song and dance, stand-up
comedy, whatever wakes them up...how do you know when your husband has
had enough sex? Do you look at the clock?
This lecture is of course done with babies at breast or peacefully
sleeping on moms and I think that makes them more alert. If a baby
wakes up in the middle, we stop and get him plugged in before we
continue.
The whole thing is about an hour and those moms with problems can stay
after class or come back in an hour.
I do give out a handout, but I am afraid that it gets lost in the
hundreds of printed sheets that they get and some don't even discover it
until weeks later.
Any ideas on making handouts more user friendly, and something that
won't get lost in the confusion of the early days? Print them on a
t-shirt? On pillow cases?
Tattoo them on?
Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Tel Aviv, Israel, where winter has finally shown its cold and rainy
self!! Haven't even bothered to take the winter coats out of storage.
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