Right or wrong, I try to make two points: that the baby knows what he needs
and needn't be second-guessed but also that no other mammal mother is
concerned about her baby's intake in the first place. Probably no other
mammal even knows she has milk, or knows what it does. She takes the baby
off or "switches sides" for all kinds of "me-reasons" - a stiff limb, an
itch, her own hunger, boredom, anything at all, including the baby beginning
to be annoyed and thus annoying on the first side. And human mothers, being
mammals, have those same options.
The catch is, of course, other mammals also resume nursing when the baby
wants, rather than waiting for a preestablished time to pass, probably
because his "kvetching" is distressing and it's simpler to nurse than to
listen. (I mostly talk dogs and gorillas, without much real knowledge of
either one.) If Mammal Mama takes Baby off "too soon" because she wants to
do something else, *fine*. But of course he'll probably want to nurse again
that much sooner if he got cut short, and she'll let him because it shuts
him up. Improvising together like this is what makes it a free-flowing
dance.
Switch sides whenever you like or not at all, I tell them; *just don't do it
for the baby's sake*. If you over-work this, trying to figure out exactly
when adequate milk transfer has occurred or whether your baby is truly
hungry vs "just feeling sucky" or whether he's getting foremilk or hindmilk,
*that's* when you get into trouble. Play dumb. Be selfish, which includes
not wanting the baby to fuss as well as as not wanting to be a martyr.
Nurse like a mammal. I save the "rules" for temporary use if there are
over/undersupply problems.
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com
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