I wanted a bit of a sounding board because I am a bit down this early am
(5:50) and unable to sleep any longer.
The "bad" portion of yesterday is that my husband came home from work
saying one of his co-workers' wives had been to work that morning with
their 2 month old baby. She was worried about him, something about
crystals in his diaper (dehydration? or gel crystals from disposable
diapers?). She had spent most of thursday at the hospital going from
one doctor to another, and was sick and tired of it all...thinks she has
insufficiant milk. Another co-worker piped up that that was likely the
problem, and to go buy a case of AIM and go that route. My own husband
said it was "impossible" to not have enough milk (ok, we know that rare
cases of insufficiant glandular tissue, or perhaps, not knowing this
mom's hx, breast reduction, etc., can have this effect...but let's
assume this is one of the 98% or so of moms who is "normal"). He
started saying that what did the people do 100's of years ago, they
certainly didn't give AIM...and the pesky co-worker who was trying to
sales-pitch one of the "very best" AIM companies around was saying that
was wrong, they gave cow's milk straight and the infants were fine.
Unfortunately my husband didn't know enough to argue much more than to
say that he thought most babies died if they weren't given human milk up
until this century (at least I've taught him well). He told the girl
that was worried about her baby to give me a call and I'd try and solve
their problems. Well, what he said was "call Fio, she's had great
success nursing our daughter who's 17 months and you've got nothing to
lose...if she can't help you she'll tell you". I'd have preferred he
say "if she can't help you directly, she will find the ressources and
someone better qualified to help you"...but anyhow, I digress.
My gut feeling, knowing these people is that several factors may be
contributing, including too many bottles already (nipple preference
perhaps), and perhaps some feed scheduling. Luckily, as far as I know,
Babywise and friends aren't yet translated into french around here, but
the general gist of their information has been around for ages: don't
pick up baby or you'll spoil him. If you have to nurse more often than
15 min. every 3 hours, you've not got enough milk. Etc.
I don't know enough of the case history to make any judgement about
what's *really* going on...I sincerely do hope that she will give me a
call, but my husband doubts it...says she left convinced that she was
going to give it all up and buy a case of AIM. She says, after all,
"28$ is not expensive" (but that's per week...). I have the sinking
feeling that this is another of those people who says that, but who
would balk at a 60$ consultation fee if necessary, with an IBCLC. :-(
People seem to think that buying AIM is "just one of those costs" to
factor in when you have a baby...like a crib, playpen, stroller, and
carseat. If you can breastfeed, great, you "save" money...but it's
certainly not worth spending money in order to save money! :-(
If she does call, I will sit down and go through everything with
her...my last hope really is that she might call because of engorgement
or something and admit to wanting to nurse the baby, and we might get
her back on track that way, but I have my doubts...lots of them. :-(
Well, that was the bad portion of the day...and I've spent a lot of the
past 20 hours or so thinking and musing over it. :-( If that pesky
co-worker doing the sales-pitch on baby milk hadn't been there, Steve
might have had a fighting chance at convincing her to give me a call,
but I think he was fighting a loosing battle there. :-(
The worst part of it is that I don't think she'd see my having 17 months
experience breastfeeding as a good thing. I'd be seen as the extremist
(anyone who nurses more than 3 months around here would be...) who would
be trying to "force" her to continue. Not the "resident expert" or
anything. :-(
The better part of the day though, was when we had a visit from friends
in the evening...and Steve asked the woman friend whether she thought it
was possible to not have enough milk (obviously thinking of it like
me). I have seen a lot of this friend in the 17 months I've been
nursing Sandrine, and have done a bit of brain-washing in that time.
Well, not really brain-washing, but I do bring up tidbits of information
from time to time. This lady friend, I, said no. She said the more you
nurse, the more milk you'll have, and then said "isn't that what you
said Fio?". :-) Yes yes! All my tidbits haven't been said in vain.
:-)
We got to talking and she mentioned that her step-father's cousin
(rather large extended family here) had a girl who nursed until she was
6!!! Well, interesting to hear I'm not the only person she knows who
nurses for longer than 0-3 months.
Eventually, still on the subject of breastfeeding, she said "I used to
be sure that when I'd have kids, I'd bottlefeed, but you convinced me
otherwise. I don't know how long I'd breastfeed for, but I'll more than
certainly give it a shot." Her main concern is that she is attending
bar school this year to be a lawyer and says she won't be able to have
extended maternity leave of 12 months or anything. 6 months might be
possible...and she thinks that pumping and lawyers don't mix. Her
statement was "I can see myself having a letdown and being in court and
saying 'sorry your honour, but I need to go pump my milk please'." ;-)
I didn't get into scheduled pumping at this time...who knows when she'll
have kids (she's only 22 now, and has no plans for them in the
"forseeable future", but will likely find her clock ticking away some
year and want them then...30 maybe? 28 maybe? 33? don't know!).
We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I mentioned natural weaning
to her, and gave her Kathy Dettwyler's famous statement about how it's
important to know what would be normal for humans, and to go from
there. It might not make her nurse 2.5 years...but it might make her
push to go a full year instead of 6 months. Who knows. She may yet
evolve still. ;-)
So I was glad that I seeminly have had some impact on someone's life so
far. ;-) And I think that this friend would actually call me if she
needed me for bf help. Though even if she didn't, if she had a kid I'd
call HER to make sure things were going ok a few times in the early
days, then less often as things got better and the baby got older. She
was asking if you had to prepare your nipples at all to bf, and I told
her no...and we got into discussing pain at the beginning of nursing,
and I said that although it's not supposed to hurt, sometimes with an
inexperienced newborn who doesn't quite do it "right" it can be
necessary to have a bit of an adjustment time...but I said if you don't
breastfeed you're pretty uncomfortable too for a while with
engorgement. I'd say that you're in pain because you've just had a baby
if you don't nurse, and if you do, you might be lucky and have one of
those babies who seems to do fine off the bat and never need any
"lessons" whatsoever. :-) So another tidbit for her to ponder over...
I also mentioned my having seen young rats nurse (see my post from a
couple of weeks back)...newborns and 4 week olds tandem nursing on the
same mommy rat. She thought taht was way cool too.
So the end of the day was not quite so bad. There's hope for the world
and for humanity yet. ;-)
Sorry for being so long.
Fio.
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