Sigh.  My house is actually beginning to look orderly... at the expense of
lactnet.  Maybe in my old age I'll be able to manage both a clean house and
an e-mail presence??

But it seems I've been missing some splendid latch-on discussions, and I
can't wait to dig into my stacked-up lactnets and see what's been going on.

>when you guys see babies on their first or
>second nursing and they are doing the open/pause/close type of sucking and
>having audible swallowing, but the latch is not what I would call optimal...
>do you intervene and offer (gently) advice... (or) should I
>go by the adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"...

Two recent babies come immediately to mind.  One was a Leader Applicant's
whom I was hoping to use for pictures, since it was her second baby.  But
their latch was absolutely terrible and I quietly dismissed the idea.  (I
confess I kept a silent eye on them as well.)  Baby thrived, mom was never
sore.  Another was a client's who came to me in great distress because her
baby persisted in tucking in his lower lip.  He was gaining well above
average.  "Are you sore?"  "No."  "Is he gaining well?"  "Yes."  "Then it
doesn't matter."  "But it's not the way it's supposed to be!"  "Are you
sore?"  "No."  "Is he gaining well?"  "Yes."  "Then it doesn't matter."  We
must have gone around like this 6 or 8 times.  At a year, he was
roly-poly... and still tucking in his lip.

How about making sure the mother of the atypical but apparently effective
early latcher has good phone numbers **and knows when to use them**, and not
pursuing it beyond that?  (Tho it does seem that many of these
early-easy-milk-terrible-latch babies turn out to be coping with oversupply
within the month...)

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL, cleaned up but out of the loop in Ithaca,
NY

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