Hi, Laurie. You asked why the surgery can't be delayed until the child self weans. This condition can be very painful for the child, and we can't always tell how long weaning will take, even if it appears the child is weaning. He may actually appear to be weaning because it hurts too much to nurse often, and he may increase his nursing once the dental problems are resolved. My LLL co-Leader's youngest child was not talking very much at all when she was well past 3 years. In fact, we were beginning to worry that she had developmental speech delays. But her front teeth were in bad need of repair. It took a while for the family to be able to arrange the resources to get this taken care of. Once her teeth were fixed, she suddenly started talking everyone's ears off! It turns out that the air pulling in over her teeth as she tried to speak was so painful that she wouldn't talk. We were all amazed at the difference it made for her. Dee Dee Kassing, BS, MLS, IBCLC Collinsville, Illinois, in central USA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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