Thank you Diane for a particularly wonderful post....again.  Please come live
with me for a week and let's just talk.  I need to vent -- and  you have such
a special way of putting things.  Actually, there are a number of Lactnetters
that I think should come to Wheaton, and we'd have a major slumber party with
an emphasis on the party....

This week's frustration?  I'm not as articulate as Diane.

No, really, there is another one....  The next time a person (RN, MD,
grandmother, auntie, girlfriend....) tells a mom to "wake that baby up and
feed it" I am personally going to go over to their house in the middle of the
night, wake them up and tell them that they have to do 6 impossible (for
them) things before breakfast.  Breastfeeding = baby in control.  Bottle
feeding = caregiver in control.  I can bottle feed a soundly sleeping baby.
There is a sucking reflex that kicks in and the baby has to drink or drown.
The same is NOT true of breastfeeding.  These poor moms -- "It's been THREE
hours.  You better wake that baby up NOW and get him to eat."  So mom,
feeling guilty for letting her baby starve -- never mind that he ate every
1.5 to 2 hours three times in a row -- tries unsuccessfully to wake him for
30 minutes.  He finally wakes up, screams unconsolably, and won't latch on.
Mom decides he doesn't like breastfeeding, and now, certain that the baby is
going to waste away before her very eyes (not to mention "someone" told her
the baby is dehydrating -- he's 36 hours old -- because a few uric acid
crystals were detected in the urine), gives him a bottle.  Which he sucks
down in 5 minutes flat, goes to sleep, and "sleeps like a baby."

And now we begin the downward spiral.

Why is it that (oh drat, Timothy just called to tell me he's eating at a
friend's house -- I'm not surprised; we are having the dreaded
dinner....CHICKEN! and I lost my train of thought...senior moment) ummm... oh
yes, the assumption is made that you can just wake the baby, shove the breast
in his mouth, and he'll eat because The Clock, or The Nurse, or The Parenting
Book, or The Doctor said it was TIME?  Is it any wonder that we have so many
babies that are refusing the breast?

Why can't moms be taught the art of gentle persuasion?  Why can't folks relax
about this?  Why can't we wait for the baby's timing?

Can you tell I had a mother who was in tears when I made rounds this morning
because her baby wouldn't nurse last night when the staff told her he HAD to
-- because he had uric acid crystals -- and because he was sleeping -- and
because it had been nearly 3 hours.

Sometimes I'm amazed anyone ever does breastfeed "successfully."

Jan Barger
"Further up and further in!"  C.S. Lewis, "The Last Battle."

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