Jessica, I loved your lact-message. I think that when the job gets further and further away from your own personal experience and the empathy moves away in time with the experience, a 'refresher' course is lovely. (Especially the way you did it!) (Congratulations on your new little one). My last one was 11 years ago,yesterday. I have tried to keep up my empathy and sympathy for these mothers. I think sharing our experiences and sympathy is helpful, supportive and can be very therapeutic to the mothers we help. I think, that the formula issue is very true also. I have come to understand that we all have 'formula-fed baby images' in our heads. They include what a baby looks like after feeds (don't include what a breastfed baby looks like when they want to eat and eat and eat), the longer interval between feeds,etc, etc, including "how much is there, anyway?". So being an advocate for BF and that things will and do resolve about suckling and the amount of milk we produce is very important. It is important to get everyone around a mother saying the same consistant positive thing. Your note IS important and not boring. It's always good to be refreshed in our jobs! Thank you, Betsy Wells-Gephart RN, IBCLC Chandler, AZ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html