I find I am more likely to connect with the mother who has misinformation or doubts about her ability to fully surrender to bfg when I surrender my expectations of what she should do. I am a bossy woman by nature, but I've never been thanked for foisting my own 'shoulds' on someone. When I try to discover what the mother wants, and start my help from the point where she is, it seems to diminish the defenses she throws up to prevent herself from being pushed somewhere she doesn't really feel ready to go. This disipates a lot of tension, and builds trust. Once we have some rapport, I often find that she is more receptive to information about other options. I usually just smile and nod if someone tells me she needs her sleep at night and Dad is going to bottle feed. If that's her decision, I cheerfully start there by telling her how to make that work. She's generally so surprised to find that I don't try to talk her out of this that before long she is a bit more receptive to the idea of me showing her how to nurse lying down. This turns out to be pleasant. We laugh together watching the baby crawl to the nipple. She gets excited seeing how clever her infant is, and before long we are chatting about how maybe this would be easier than getting up to pump while Dad does the bottle. But I don't have any expectations about how things will turn out, and I think it is the mom's perception that I really am pretty detatched and respectful of her choices that gives her some freedom to explore my new ideas. In my ph. follow-ups, I praise her no matter what, and keep offering little helpful hints. Often these mothers who seem so brittle and well-organized and kind of manic turn out to be merely frightened of failure. They often are perfectionists whose experience as a mom is their first glimpse of a situation they can't really control. This is pretty unnerving, and often they need lots of moral support and warmth and approval that you do see and appreciate how hard it is for them and what an effort even TRYING bfg is for them. These are the moms who may do much better 2nd time around, and who trust you and the process more then. Barbara Wilson-Clay BSEd, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates http://www.lactnews.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