Jennifer writes:

<< I do not assume a mother really wants to bf just b/c she calls me, but if
she says she does, I do everything I can, as if she means it. >>

I really agree with both parts of this.

In my neck of the woods a lot of women believe that bf is much better for the
baby but much harder for the mother.  The result is that the feel obligated
to "try" to bf, but not very motivated to try hard.  So with a sort of
martyr-like resignation they do read up in advance (usually in "what to
expect..."), sometimes ask me ahead of time for tips, and call me or an LC or
their ped, rather than just dumping it immediately, when they have what they
perceive as predictable trouble  -- on, say, day 2.

But many of these mothers, even if they get good advice on that day-2 consult
they are quick to follow someone else's give-formula advice instead, because
it seems to them so much more intuitive and easy than what they think they
will get, or even are getting, from the LC -- the finger feeding, the
supplementer, whatever -- stuff that seems "unnatural" to them.

Because of this I see a really big part of my job, in the chain of bf
support, as being:

1) Emphasize that day-2 "interventions" are the easy ones-- latch &
positioning and frequent feeding, not devices (at that stage, anyway).  In
other words, really steps in learning, rather than "interventions" at all.

2) Emphasize that their baby, whom they are almost always describing as
fussy, demanding, crying all the time, nursing poorly, etc, is in fact the
most charming creature on earth.

Fortunately for me I am always so excited to see a new baby that even a
pretty high-need little person usually really does seem to me like the most
charming creature on earth!  and first-time parents are almost universally
delighted to hear their little one characterized this way.   Telling them
this is a way of psyching them into the realization that both they and junior
just have a little learning curve to go through over the next day or two, and
that, though its a little stressful for all three right now, all signs
suggest that its going to be excellent almost immediately.   Then the normal
"difficulties" -- a hungry baby, a second of latch-pain, a tired mom -- seem
mere moments in the context of a happy pattern, rather than ominous signs of
impending disaster.

So the upshot is:  Yes, often mothers are calling just to check off their
obligations before they wean.  But even many of these same mothers are
ambivalent --- that is, the answer to "what is your goal for bf?" has several
contradictory impulses in it; and they may well go on to get happy about bf
and do it for quite a long time if we can walk the delicate line of helping
them find another way to think about their situation.

Elisheva Urbas
freelance bf agitator

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