> She pointed out that babies are born able to feed  themselves, via 
>self-attachment. And most 2 year olds can feed themselves. So  why do mothers go 
>through such a difficult process of feeding babies at all,  much less on some 
>arbitrary schedule? 

One of the highlights of the Sydney ILCA conference, for me, was time spent watching a mother gorilla at the zoo.  I never saw her make eye contact with her baby... and I never saw her lose touch with him.  When the troupe was given its food, the mother gathered food and baby and went to a private spot to eat.  The baby, visually ignored but physically in touch, played at her feet.  

He tried, in a half-hearted way, to climb over her big belly to nurse.  She ignored him, kept eating, and he gave up.  He was hungry, but not hungry enough to keep trying, I suppose.  Some food fell from her mouth.  He picked it up, mouthed it a bit, and dropped it.  He was interested in it, but not old enough to make good use of it, I suppose.  Throughout his half-hearted efforts at breast and solids, his mother just placidly went on eating.  Feeding himself was clearly his own business, not hers.  If he had really wanted to, he would have nursed.  If he had really been old enough, he would have swallowed the food that fell from her mouth.  As it was, he learned something - on his own - about what consitituted appropriate solid food, and he let it go at that.  So did she.  

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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