Maryelle--I'm glad you're a mom, first! You expressed your feelings very
well. (I would have said poignantly, but my spell check doesn't work in this
medium!) I, too, find frustration in the "modern method of childrearing" when
I get moms who want to know how to get theri babies to sleep all night, etc.
in my parenting classes. Many times I say,"Trust your instincts--it it
doesn't FEEL right to you deep down in your heart (i.e. letting baby cry,
weaning early, etc) then it isn't right, no matter what everyone else says".
Here's some morale boosting for all of us--I have had several calls in recent
weeks about moms exploring weaning options--all of their babies were about
1-1.5 years. Several of these are moms that I had a lot of contact with over
a year ago!! The fact that each of them continued to BF for this length of
time was heart-lifting! At least one of them really didn't want to wean yet,
but thought she *should* so I gave her permission not to!!
Also, my partner Joanne recently had a case where baby would not L/O despite
all of our efforts. Mom had been pumping since the start and so had a
well-est milk supply. Joanne thought about bringing mom and baby closer
togethr with a shield and it worked. She explained all drawbacks to mom and
gave her guidelines for cutting back, etc. This went well until she tried to
get rid of the shield. Baby didn't like nursing on cut shield, but all of a
sudden one day a few weeks ago the baby latched on to the breast (*NAKED*)
and nursed and has been doing so ever since! Sometimes the decision has to
be...is the intervention going to come between the couple or bring them
closer together? Food (or should I say Breastmilk...) for thought. Kathy
Rubin, Freehold, NJ