HI everyone, Didn't expect to writing again so soon, but I thought you'd all like to hear an upbeat message. I posted a week or two ago about wanting the older baby to breastfeed. No, he hasn't latched on yet, and if he had, it would have been a total shock. We still have a ways to go. But because of all your support and encouragement, things are changing. Before posting to Lactnet, I saw each little nusring sign as rejection and defeat. Now I see they are all "baby steps" in the process toward the ultimate goal of healing. Bobby totally refused to take a sippy cup lid into his mouth for more than a second or two when I wrote that posting. After about three days of trying again (I dismissed the OT's explaination that this was going backwards, thanks to all of your enthusiasm and hopeful words), he now takes it without a problem, completely closes his mouth around it, and SUCKS the water from the cup. That is the first thing I have ever seen him suck. I am aware that the tongue motion of a nursing child is different than sucking, but I was so thrilled that he took gulp after gulp of the water without removing the spout from his mouth. It is certainly a step in the right direction. And again because of all of your support, I am now offering him my breast whenever I instinctively feel I should. He has had his hand down my shirt constantly for these last few weeks, licking my chest if my shirt neck is low enough, rubbing his face into my shirt, etc...all the right moves. So I decided to take him up on it. Now whenever he shows me those nursing cues, I flip him down into position, he initially tenses up, and then he settles. Next I'll take out my nipple as if I would nurse him...more tenseness on his part, but then, ta da! we play games with my nipple. Nipple in the ear, nipple on the nose, silly noises, lots of eye contact, and he laughs and laughs, and don't you know, he opened his mouth a few times when I brushed it against his lips or cheek. In fact, as I was writing this, he was whining because he wanted my attention, I stopped typing, we did our nipple play, and he actually opened his mouth really wide to grab it, but it took me totally by surprise and I pulled it out of his mouth ready to move on to the next place to play. It is very likely to happen again. So instead of finding every way to distract myself and fight my instincts to nurse him, I am now going with it, we're having lots of fun, it's a positive experience for him, and I feel like I have a part of my nursing baby back. Having nursed my other children over the years, I tuned into and refined these instincts, and though I tried, they were almost impossible to ignore with Bobby. Frustrating is stating it mildly, downright depressing is more like it. We are both much happier now because of all of your wonderful posts. Thanks again, all of you. I won't be cluttering LACTNET with weekly progress reports or anything, but I just couldn't help but tell you how right you all were! Even is this doesn't lead to actual latching and nursing, it feels much better for both of us. Trish and Bobby *********************************************** 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