Fellow Lactnetters,

Just wanted to report the happy news on a mom I worked with last month.  Baby refused breast at two days old after having nursed well but then given a bottle of sugar water.  I saw the baby at four weeks and, while he did not scream when put next to the breast, the expression on his face seemed to say, "What the heck is this for?"  Mom kept pumping and giving bottles (yes, I advised alternative feeding methods), but also sometimes feeding baby by dropper, while skin to skin with him snuggled with the breast.  At six weeks, suddenly, without warning, he latched and suckled and swallowed for ten minutes.  He had not latched on since day 2.  Mom called me right after the feeding -- she was so excited.  She called me yesterday (baby is now eight weeks old) to say that he is refusing bottles and nursing exclusively, gaining great.  This is a baby who'd been getting maybe 20% EBM and the rest ABM.  Fortuntely, it seems the relatively small amount of pumping mom was doing was enough to keep her supply up.  I asked the mom what she thought made the biggest difference and she said, undoubtedly, it was the skin-to-skin contact.

Has it been true in everyone's experience that some babies just "get it" between six and eight weeks, as Jack Newman says? 

--Julie Rosen, LLLL
NJ

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