Donna -

Thanks for posting your tandem nsg. mom's response to the feedback she got
from us on lactnet. I think it's a perfect lesson for all of us in how
*what* we say and *how* we say it is received and perceived. In my
experience, it's pretty unusual to get back such direct feedback, in such an
honest tone; those we may have offended or hurt or just missed the mark with
go somewhere else with it, and we may never know that they felt hurt or
misunderstood or belittled by what we've said.

Maybe what this mom needed from us (a collective "us", since I'm not
referring to any individual response) WASN'T a "solution" to her "problem";
maybe she really just needed to hear "Oh yeah, my older kid did that too -
it was kind of annoying, but eventually he grew out of it" or "I know what
you mean - 21/2 yrs old, with a new baby in the family, is a pretty hard
time to try to wean, isn't it? If you've alredy tried x, y, and z, it might
work out best just to kind of go with it for a while and wait it out."

We (women) typically don't like it when we tell our husband some long story,
looking for some sympathy or just acknowledgement of how we're feeling, and
he responds with a bunch of "answers" or "solutions" for whatever it was
that set us off. I think that to have this mom's response to the suggestions
she received is kind of similar - and so very valuable for us to have.
Sometimes, in our rush to help, I'm sure we just forget to really hear
what's at the bottom of the "presenting problem".

Thanks for sharing this with us, Donna! Sounds like you have a good
relationship with this mom.

Cathy Bargar RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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