Following this correspondence, I think we need to also look at the mother`s personality - working with women in pregnancy and continuing afterwards during postpartum and breastfeeding duration, I can often predict which mothers are going to flow with their babies and which are anxious about routines, schedules, weights and measurements etc.
Joan Raphael-Leff has written for many years about the Facilitator/Regulator mothers (Psychological Processes of Childbearing - 1991, published by Chapman Hall)
It doesn`t mean that one is a "better mother" than the other, just that when we work with women we should be aware that some will have more difficulty adjusting after birth to lack of routine.  Life is so chaotic and unstructured for a time (the next 30 years or more!!!) and the most flexible of parents are usually in shell-shock at the beginning.

According to Joan Raphael-Leff, it should not be expected for a woman to change her basic personality but to understand it and explore ways of adjustment.  When the Facilitator tries to be a Regulator (which we who had babies 35+ years ago were pressured to do) or the reverse which is sometimes forced on women today, this, according to Raphael-Leff is the road to problems.

We could take this one step further and say that babies are also facilitators/regulators.  Some babies and young children seem to prefer structure and routine whereas others just flow with the tide.
Then put fathers into the equation, and one sees how the family dynamic affects not only breastfeeding but every aspect of family life and expectations.

Wendy Blumfield
NCT ANT Tutor/BFC
Israel Childbirth Education Centre
www.leida.co.il/Wendyblumfield

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