Rachel

As usual, you make a load of great points!  I'd just like to say, 
however, that I've seen expressing during the day to save the milk 
for later to really work.  For the mother that really feels 
overwhelmed in the evenings, or would like someone else to take over 
feeding the baby at _some_ time in the night.

Pumps and cleaning?  Not at all.  This is a good teaching moment for 
manual expression, since the quantities are usually quite small (25 
ml here and there).  Show the mother how she can can hand-express 
into a little bowl, cover it, and leave it in the fridge, then Dad, 
or whoever, can warm it up in a dish of boiling water later.   I 
think the idea here is not for the mother to sit and bottle-feed her 
own milk in the middle of the night, but to have someone else do it 
(or finger-feed it, or cup-feed it) so she can catch up on some sleep.

This method keeps up the mother's milk supply.  The baby's entire 
intake is produced by the mother, it's just taken at different times 
by the baby.

In practice, I find most mothers become impatient with doing this 
after a few weeks.  And they revert back to breastfeeding-direct all 
the time.   But for those who become unglued by the thought of being 
on call 26 hours a day, or for those who worry that they don't have 
"enough" milk in the early evenings, even though we _keep_ telling 
them that they produce low-volume, high-fat/calorie milk at that time 
and this is _normal_ then it's another tool in the box to preserve 
exclusive breastfeeding.

Just my 0.2 ml ......

Pamela

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome