I worked Saturday in the hospital that I commute to twice a month--very
different support system there is why I drive 85 miles one way to work as a
IBCLC.
A couple I worked with had lots of questions, a sleepy baby with a little
jaundice, and very supportive grandparents in the room. It turned into a 2 hr
consult/teaching moment. As we talked the Mom said that the new moms in her
neighborhood was sharing a book among themselves and had I ever heard of the
baby scheduling program B_ _ _w_ _ _.. I felt I had gained their trust and
could use this as a teachable moment and so I asked them what exactly
appealed to them from the book. They replied sleeping through the night. I
told them that I was about to reveal one of the best kept secrets of all
times---Moms NEVER sleep through the night for the rest of their lives. I
explained about teething stages, and then listening for toddlers to roam
about the house in the middle of the night, then for school agers to be
reading with the flashlights under the covers, then for teens to be sneaking
in and out, then you wake at 2 PM when they're in college wondering if they
made it in from the bars and then you're in menopause and having hot flashes.
The grandparents just roared with laughter and said I had it exactly right!
We discussed the credentials of the aurthors, and how perhaps marketing to
parents' fears and uncertainities had lead to the popularity of this book. I
asked how the neighbors had fared with the program-they said it hadn't worked
with the one across the street. We discussed responding to cues, and
scheduling feeding. While I was in the room, they had been eating and
drinking snacks, and then later grandmother passed out gum. I asked how they
would have felt if I had come in and told them they couldn't have had the
soft drinks or the gum. As we talked the grandparents reinforced all that I
said. The parents said they felt so much better qualified to be parents now,
and the book was now going to be firewood!
We had 21 bfing babies out of 28 in the nursery Saturday but I could only see
6 because eveyone had such detailed questions and situations.

Barbara Whitehead, IBCLC

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