>I apologize for the rant about shoes.....

Beth Hilleke writes:
>
>I've never done this...  Have heard mention of microwaving bras if you have
>thrush.  I assume the bra needs to be fairly damp, with the goal being to
>make the bra really hot and kill the yeasty beasties.  Put the hooks on the
>bottom, the cups facing the top of the microwave.

Some microwaves will go ballistic if there is any metal in whatever you are
nuking -- shooting sparks all over the place.  Be careful.
>
>Kathy D. or anyone else...  I'm still intrigued by the nursing for several
>minutes several times/hour  that is common elsewhere.  Why do American babies
>(for the sake of example) seem to nurse longer at longer intervals?  Is it that
>the American mother is sitting down in her comfy rocker to nurse rather than
>nursing with baby in sling-ish thing as she goes about her work?  What makes
>the pattern different here?

I think you're right about mom being more willing to sit and nurse for
extended periods and also that babies don't sleep in such extended periods
when they are skin-to-skin with a mom who is moving around.  They have
continual access to the breast, and so nurse very often and sleep in small
nap-lets.  They never get very hungry, but tank up whenever they want -- so
you don't get the big meals followed by big sleeps.  Both my "normal" kids
nursed on a several time per hour schedule or else continuously attached for
hours at a time, for much of their six months.  I think it is fairly easy to
get many babies to stretch out their sleep times by solitary sleeping and
(dare I say -- well, I will, since you all think I'm nuts anyway) "sensory
deprivation" of wearing clothes, so when baby wakes up they are ravenous, so
they feed for 20-30 minutes and ingest a big quantity, which then keeps them
happy for another couple of hours.  And soon everyone is into this routine.
What you "expect" to happen plays a big role in creating reality -- so if
mothers think babies should only be hungry every 2-3 hours then they may not
offer breast, but instead try walking around or singing or rocking or a
pacifier and that keeps baby's mind off of food for awhile and eventually
they are *really* hungry and refuse to be put off any longer, and they get
nursed, and its been several hours by then.  The thing is that not all
babies are amenable to going this long between nursings, and yet we teach
this as the norm, so when you get a mother whose baby wants to nurse more
often she thinks it is abnormal and wonders what is wrong with her baby.
Whenever a new mom complains that her baby "wants to nurse every hour and a
half" I respond "Oh, is that all?"

Remember that the more often the child nurses, the higher the fat content of
the milk.


For Judy: Barney is a big purple dinosaur who is very sappy and sweet, but
at least believes that girls can grow up to be the same things as boys, and
has people of different ethnicities and kids with handicaps on his show.

Kathy D., whose Barney toy is now in "Time Out" facing the corner of the room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352