At 03:45 PM 1/27/98 EST, you wrote:
>Dear Elisheva-
>     I have a friend who is also my children's pediatrician.  She is
currently
>breastfeeding her 8 month old girls---all three of them!  She also has two
>older  (4 and 7) boys and works part-time in a busy pediatric practice.
>     She uses a nurse-mates pillow (Brand name used on purpose here---it's
>wider than many others) and nurses two at once.  The third sucks on a sisters
>thumb, or toes, or sleeve until it's her turn.  When one pulls off, bites, or
>gets sleepy, the one who is waiting gets "her" breast, and then has
dessert on
>the one vacated by her other sister.  Sometimes a baby will come back a time
>or two.  You know how babies will often nurse, seem satisfied, then cue
hunger
>again a short time later as the cholecystakinine levels return to baseline?
>After a short break, one may be ready to return to the breast, just as a
>sister is ready for *her* break.  They often stroke each other while they
>nurse, and offer a thumb to the baby-in-waiting  to tide her over.  Very
>sweet!
>     As they are bigger now, they do interesting things like stroking the
>breast to increase flow---sort of a baby-led breast compression!
>---Debi Page Ferrarello, RN, IBCLC

My daughters have all started to knead my breasts while they nurse, usually
starting around 4 mos of age and continuing to weaning.  Kneading is the
best way I can think to describe it, the seem to try and grab a palmful of
my breast and kind of roll it, then move their hands and continue around my
breast.  I always figured I encouraged this as I would frequently play with
the fingers closest to my breastbone, and when my hand was otherwise
occupied they missed the interaction, so would do some hand play of their
own.  I'm sure I'm not describing this well.  Is this a common practice of
babies that I just misunderstood?  After reading this I thought about and
realized, the motion could be quite like that of a mother hand expressing
her milk, have my babies just been doing even more work than I realized
while nursing?
Melissa and the girls
Tori 1-16-94
Beth 1-30-96
Lili 7-10-97
http://home1.gte.net/melnphil
Breastfeeding Peer Counselor