I’ve been away so long… but now I’m back

I’ve been so busy!

1. I’ve had to succumb and return to work. As I don’t live in breastfeeding utopia, I’ve had to leave baby B with his Nan. That’s right, my mil. But she’s not been too bad with him at all; there’s not much babywearing going on but there’s lots and lots of play and tactile comfort, plus the baby-led weaning is still continuing and going well. I pump while I’m in work for him and he gets plenty of solids & water plus a bit of milk while I’m in work; at home he breastfeeds often; he is also a milk vampire and feeds constantly at night!

2. I’ve been busy with my peer supporter stuff; I’ve graduated now (hurray! lovely day where we received certificates from the Mayoress of St Helens) and three of us (me, A & K) are starting up a group on Saturdays in our local SureStart children’s centre.

3. Dh hasn’t been well. He has been diagnosed with a central serous retinopathy in his right eye… which is bad enough by itself, but his left eye is a lazy eye. Sadly we weren’t getting anywhere with the NHS so we went private for the diagnosis … it looks like he’ll have to have an operation, although we can get this on the NHS.

So you can see I’ve had a lot to contend with – apologies for my absence but I will try to pop back a lot sooner next time!

About my previous post (“A little story”).

After a comment on that particular post I wanted to explain exactly what I was trying to say as – I didn’t realise when I wrote it – it might have been misinterpreted.

My gist was this: we’re often told that there’s only a very, very, very small percentage of women who “can’t breastfeed”; often 1 in 50 is quoted. People often use this “fact” as a stick to beat women with who formula feed their babies.

I was trying to write about the cultural reasons surrounding breastfeeding difficulties, so that the 1 in 50 figure (which I think is things like breast reduction surgery, medical conditions that stop a woman lactating, that kind of thing) is actually much, much higher.

For example, our culture (here in the UK) tells women not to share a bed with their babies, that this is somehow wrong or immoral. Not bedsharing makes night feeding a bit more of a hassle, so that some women try and night-wean their babies earlier than the baby is ready. Often this causes problems with the breastfeeding relationship and sometimes the woman even stops breastfeeding as a result of these problems. However, I wasn’t saying was that putting your baby in a cot is wrong, or that if you can’t breastfeed it’s your own fault for not bedsharing, or anything else along these lines!!

Another example was that our culture tells us that babies have dummies when they cry.  This causes problems; sometimes the baby gets confused with how to suck, doesn’t remove milk efficiently from the breast as a result and breastfeeding is compromised; sometimes the breasts aren’t stimulated enough as the baby sucks on the dummy for comfort instead of the breast and the woman’s milk supply isn’t as great as it could be and so on. However again I wasn’t saying that dummies are just wrong, or that if you can’t breastfeed it’s your own fault for using a dummy!

I just wanted to clear that up as I really do not want to come across as a judgemental person; if anything I was trying to show with that post the very fact that I don’t think we should be judgemental of women who are unable to breastfeed, whatever the reasons.

Until the information that is given to breastfeeding women by health care professionals and others is all correct, accurate and free of myths and cultural assumptions, until all mothers who want to breastfeed have access to accurate information and that information is readily available (no matter what her level of education, reading ability etc.), until breastfeeding is seen as a normal activity, until breasts are no longer seen solely as sex objects, until the stigma surrounding breastfeeding (especially in public, and with older babies, toddlers and children) has disappeared completely, until the formula companies have stopped shoving their erroneous information down our throats, until we stop forcing women back into paid work when they are breastfeeding, until women who do want to do paid work while breastfeeding are allowed to express milk or have their babies with them without any hassle and without having to fight for it, until practices (like Attachment Parenting, bedsharing, babywearing etc.) which help the breastfeeding relationship become the cultural norm, until it is considered a woman’s indelible right to breastfeed her infant should she wish, until all this happens I will not judge a woman for her infant feeding decision.

(And even if it does happen, I still won’t judge.)

Baby B’s first few weeks – part two.

Finally, I’d met someone who recognised that look of desperation in my eyes. Who didn’t tell me my baby was content, or wasn’t hungry, or just needed a dummy. Who saw that something was wrong, and that I needed it sorted out.

And who introduced me to the breastfeeding support group at Whiston Hospital.

But before that happened, dh and I nearly split up, and mil’s taking baby B so I could “rest” rapidly became mil taking baby B so I could do the housework. In fact, when she returned one day and found me on the internet (Kellymom, or Mumsnet, trying to get breastfeeding support as usual) she actually told dh that I was taking the p- out of him and was lazy. Dh told me this and said, “and you won’t listen to me, but you normally listen to mil, so if she says it, as an independent observer, maybe you’ll think she’s right and more needs doing round here?”

(Dh has since apologised for that attitude I hasten to add!)

So I had that going around in my head; baby B still cried all the time and I succumbed in the end to Prozac.

K helped me attach baby B a bit better; she helped with my positioning so baby B’s lower arm was tucked under my boob. You’d be amazed at the difference this made, but something still wasn’t quite right.

At eight weeks old, I took baby B to the support group. N was on holiday. Another midwife was running it. I told her his latch wasn’t right. “That must be annoying,” she said. That was it.

The desperation was growing worse and as I was just starting on Prozac,  my mental state was growing worse too (Prozac, like many SSRIs, makes things worse before it makes them better). I woke up in the night even when baby B was asleep with a tense feeling in my stomach like a panic attack. I was terrified he might never feed properly and I would have to switch to formula. I can’t tell you why that terrified me so much but it did, it absolutely horrified me; I felt like it would destroy me.

At nine weeks of age, baby B met T. I’ve mentioned T before. T was wonderful. She was running the support group in N’s absence again and actually took me seriously.  We had my boobs out trying all sort of positions, sandwiching my areola and shoving it into baby B’s mouth, rugby balls, cross cradles, cradles and the like. It still wasn’t perfect but it was much better. I practised all through the week, just me and baby B.

Some time in these few weeks, I can’t remember exactly when, I got a sling after advice on Mumsnet. I could now carry baby B and get out and about, whereas before he would scream and scream in a pram and every five seconds I was stopping to pick him up, rock him, then put him back in the pram, walk another five seconds, pick him up… you get the picture.

That helped too. And then, when baby B was ten weeks old I met N. And you know what? I can’t even remember what she did exactly. Some stuff on positioning, helping me by suggesting I pull his chin down when latching him on, but nothing huge. But just knowing that there was a support group where an “expert” actually resided, just knowing that I would be able to breastfeed my baby, made a huge difference.

Of course to dh and mil the difference was the Prozac kicking in; my depression had been affecting baby B and that was why he’d been crying.

And after week ten, things started to get easier. I started co-sleeping; by accident first; I fed baby B lying down and fell asleep myself; when the sky didn’t cave in I did it more and more often. By the time baby B was three months of age things were much better.

It took mine and dh’s relationship until baby B was about five months old to recover; mine and mil’s still isn’t right. But my relationship with baby B, the most important one of them all, is absolutely wonderful.

Friday’s support group

On Friday I went as usual to Whiston Hospital with K in the morning and had a whale of a time. Baby B was my demo model as I was called upon to demonstrate feeding lying down, and babywearing.

I hadn’t known I was going to be asked to demonstrate babywearing, but coincidentally, K had asked to borrow one of my slings, as she is going to try out wearing H, so I had my red padded ring sling with me. I also had my purple pashmina (to show K the power of a SPOC*) and my black canvass pouch sling.

So there was I wandering around the room with baby B in various different positions in different slings; I also got to carry one or two of the adorable newborn babies, aww. Hard to believe, even now, only seven months on and with baby B being a slow gainer, that he was ever that little.

One lady came who looked desperate; I remember that look.  Her baby would not settle, cried a lot, liked to cluster feed and she was getting no sleep (hers was the lying down demo). I gently suggested safe co-sleeping, not just at night but also during the daytime naps. It gets me every time that I talk about it that people say, “but… is that okay?” I sometimes wonder if by okay they mean safe, or morally okay, or GP recommended or what exactly they mean.

In fact if you’re not used to sleeping in a bed with a baby, daytime naps are a great place to practise! Just feed lying down, and as you lie there watching your baby suckle away you feel peaceful and just a bit sleepy and baby’s eyes close and…. Zzzzzzzzz…

I remember that look though. Reminded me to get around to writing the story of baby B’s first few weeks… soon, I promise!

But yes, Friday I thought went quite well.  Two pregnant ladies came too; I discussed feeding in public with them and how it is possible to be discreet… if you want to, that is!

*SPOC – simple piece of cloth; you can carry your baby in pretty much anything if you’re inventive enough!

The No Cry Sleep Solution – Elizabeth Pantley

Ah, I love this book. Absolutely love it. Not so much because the solutions in it work (slowly, and with some trial and error) but because it’s written with such care.

Granted, some of it is a bit “home-baked apple pie and Thanksgiving turkey” (the author is from the US) but in the main, it’s just lovely.  It’s also totally non-judgmental. It talks about the pros and cons of pacifier (dummy) use; about ways to get bottle-fed babies to sleep; it does not just concentrate on co-sleeping and even has a section on how to move a co-sleeping baby into its own cot / its own room.

To be fair, some of the chapters are perhaps a little long-winded; some of the information seems to be repeated later on. But in the main it’s a lovely read.

But does it work?

Well, the gist of this book is that there seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to sleep. One is to put up with the night wakings until your baby sleeps through the night by him/herself, and the other is to let baby cry itself to sleep (cio – cry it out), either completely, or by using the “controlled crying” method (a variant on cio). Basically, Pantley was knackered but didn’t want to let her babies cio; however she did want some sleep.

The entire idea behind this book is to help your baby change its sleep associations and gradually, and gently, and without any crying, learn how to settle itself to sleep (and in the process, awaken fully less often).

Her methods do take time and patience. But they do seem – so far – to work. (And when I say works, please remember this caveat.) I co-sleep with baby B and although the night wakings don’t bother me, at about six months dh and I decided we wanted our evenings “back” and wanted to put baby B to bed a few hours before we went up. Baby B however had other ideas; he woke up persistently in the evenings, so it was up and down stairs all evening.

A few weeks of Pantley’s ideas and we actually get a few hours of dh & dw time in the evenings; baby B usually wakes up when we come to bed and enjoys about ten minutes of time having a feed, and a little Daddy cuddle before he goes back to sleep.

So when the time does come to move baby B to his own bed I’d certainly employ Pantley’s ideas again.

I think as with any parenting manual you take what you need and leave the rest. I certainly couldn’t be doing with worrying that baby B is getting three hours nap time every day!  But yes, if you’re struggling with a non-sleeping baby but don’t want to let baby cry, I’d definitely recommend this; it integrates nicely with AP principles but also more culturally “traditional” ideas of parenting too.

What worked for me – part two; sleep

In the early days, before I had discovered co-sleeping, baby B slept beside the bed in a Moses basket. And of course I got very little sleep. I had fallen into the trap of obsessing about how much sleep baby B got; how long were the night time stretches? Any longer than the night before? Any sign he’d meet that oh-so-important milestone, “sleeping through the night” any time soon?

What helped me, apart from taking him into the big bed and never looking back, was not to think about how much sleep baby B was getting but rather to think about how much sleep I was getting. If I could somehow manage to get eight or nine hours in a twenty four hour period, I knew I’d get through.

Of course, sometimes that meant going to bed much earlier than usual; eight or nine o’clock on some nights; sometimes it meant catching up with sleep during the day on the very rare occasions that baby B would take a nap longer than 45 minutes.

But as soon as I took the focus off his sleep, and onto my sleep,  it didn’t seem to matter that I was sitting up on the rocking chair at four in the morning trying some pretty harsh breast compression in an effort to get baby B to take just a bit more milk to get him to sleep just that little bit longer.

And when I started co-sleeping, I was getting almost eight hours’ sleep every night; occasionally I build up a little bit of a sleep deficit which is solved easily by just going to bed a little bit early once or twice a week.

A little story, or, why women can’t breastfeed.

In the beginning, every baby was fed with its Mum’s milk. As baby grew teeth, and started to become curious, it would take with its hands whatever foods Mum and Dad had in front of them, but still had Mum’s milk for its main food. Eventually, as baby turned into a child, it was able to eat more foods and the amount of Mum’s milk it had lessened until one day, the child no longer needed Mum’s milk.

All that was needed for baby to get to Mum’s milk was for baby and Mum to be close to each other all the time.

Baby slept in the same bed as its Mum and Dad for as long as it wanted. Baby was carried around everywhere, normally by its Mum so it could be close to the milk, but also by Dad, Gran, Grandad, Aunties, Uncles and friends until it was old enough to crawl. Even then it was still carried around often, either in its family’s arms, or tied to family members with a simple cloth.

There was sometimes a baby whose mother carried it into the world, but then left the world herself. These babies were fed milk from other mothers and carried and cuddled close to the milk just like all the other babies.

Over time the world changed; walking was no longer the only means of traveling distances; gradually family members lived further away from each other. Many of the babies with no mothers were sent to live with each other, to be looked after by people who usually had no milk of their own.

They were fed on milk from other mammals or other foods and they often left the world almost as soon as they’d arrived.

Clever people realised this needed to change. They took the milk of a cow, added things and took other things away and made it easier for babies to digest. More of the motherless babies that would have died now lived!

Other very clever men realised that they could make money from this changed cows’ milk. However, what mother would buy it when she had her own milk?

They lied to mothers and told them that this milk was more “scientific” and better for their babies than their own milk! They were very clever men though, and many of the mothers believed them.

They invented a fake breast to carry this changed cows’ milk and eventually, this was how most babies were fed! With fake Mum’s milk in a fake breast! Really!

Mums and Dads didn’t need to sleep with their babies any more because the babies didn’t need Mum’s milk in the night. Instead, babies slept in separate beds, often surrounded by wooden bars.

More clever men knew that new babies needed to suck throughout the night, but they knew that they couldn’t leave the fake breast with the baby all night; they invented a fake nipple!

Babies now slept in separate beds, surrounded by wooden bars, sucking on a fake nipple, and given a fake breast full of changed cows’ milk if they were hungry when they awakened.

Clever men realised how many things they could sell to women if they just used the right words and all of these things were heavy. Too heavy, in fact, to carry if mothers were already carrying a baby!

So they invented a wheeled carriage with space for all baby’s things. And because babies no longer needed to be close to Mum’s milk, they too could travel in the carriage!

So babies slept in separate beds, surrounded by wooden bars, sucking on a fake nipple, given changed cows’ milk from a fake breast if they were hungry when they awakened; when they woke for the day, they were put into a wheeled carriage and pushed along with all of their things.

Clever men also realised that often the changed cows’ milk wasn’t enough for babies and they needed other foods before they had time to develop the skills to chew; they mashed food up into a pulp and fed it to babies on a spoon.

Very quickly, these things became normal; as normal as, in the beginning, it was normal for babies to be close to their Mums and their milk. It was just what happened to babies.

But some Mums worked out that their own milk was much better for their babies than the changed cows’ milk.

And yet, when they tried to feed their babies, strange things happened. Baby sucked in a strange way and hurt Mum’s breast because it was used to sucking on a fake nipple. Baby did not gain weight because it was not at the breast often enough. Baby would cry in its wheeled contraption because it liked the smell of Mum’s milk and wanted to be close to Mum’s breast. Mum got very tired from walking to and from the baby’s bed in the middle of the night. Baby took less milk than it needed because it was eating pulped and mashed food early on.

And when this happened, what did the clever men say?

“We told you all along. Mum’s milk just isn’t good enough. Babies should drink our changed cows’ milk. Your baby will then gain weight, stop crying all the time, your breasts will stop hurting, you will not be tired in the night as your baby will start sleeping and you will be able to control the amount of food your baby has.”

Reluctantly*, the majority of these Mums stopped giving their babies their own milk.

Why didn’t anyone tell these Mums that all that was needed for a baby to get Mum’s milk was for a baby to be close to its Mum and her milk all of the time?**

—————-

*Nine out of 10 women in the UK who stopped breastfeeding before their baby was six weeks old did not want to stop. This is a shocking statistic.

**Of course there are medical reasons why women are unable to breastfeed and no I’m not going to add the usual “though this is incredibly rare” caveat because it’s hard to know where a medical reason ends and a cultural reason starts. This little story is obviously very simplistic and is to illustrate just a few of the cultural reasons that make breastfeeding difficult. (Of course, the one I’ve not covered is separation at birth and highly medicalised births. Another time, perhaps.)

Of husbands and partners – something only he can do

In my last post I asked the question of how we counteract the idea that a non-lactating husband or partner can only really bond with the baby when they are allowed total care of the baby, including the feeding.

It’s easy to give pat answers like “he can bath baby, change nappies etc”. But none of this, really, gives the same feeling of bonding as having complete and utter charge of a tiny little thing, having to make every single decision and carry each one out.

I had been pondering this for ages and had been going round in circles. And then I got back from breastfeeding support group and handed baby B to dh. “He needs his Dad now,” I said, which means, “he needs you to take him onto the rocking chair and get him to sleep in that way that only you are able to“.

And then I had a lightbulb moment. It isn’t about trying to make the Mum and Dad have exactly the same experience of the baby. Mum has something that she, and only she, can do. Breastfeed the baby. And although I find it comforting to express occasionally so I always have a few ounces in the freezer “just in case” (if something dreadful happened on my driving lesson and I couldn’t get back for ages, or even like the other week when I couldn’t stop vomiting) it’s not like dh and I share the feeding in any way.

Why not look for something Dad, and only Dad, can do, in the same way?

In the comments section under my last post, Half Pint Pixie (blog on the right under personal blogs) talked about her dh being able to settle baby to sleep through his warmth, in a way she couldn’t.

Dr Sears writes of the neck nestle, a type of babywearing only Dads can do.

What else do Dads have that Mums don’t? Deeper voices; Dad can sing to the baby to settle him/her. Big hairy chests; Dad can snuggle baby onto his warm fuzzy chest and rock the baby to sleep, skin to skin. There must be more things that need a uniquely fatherly touch… and it’s not just about being male. Each individual will bring to babycare something unique; something only they can do.

My dh was always better at burping baby B in the early days when he had lots of wind. Don’t know what it was but he just had a knack I couldn’t learn. Dh is better at cooking than I am so baby B’s solid foods are almost exclusively dh’s.  (And with baby-led weaning that means delicious steaks, chicken in a leek sauce, con carni…)

I think this could be something that counters the “men must give a bottle to bond” argument. Only women can breastfeed, but only men can Dad-nurse.

It’s about finding that one thing – or more – that only they can do.

Suggestions for Dad-nursing?

Breastfeeding utopia – part three

A woman has given birth in her home. The family bed is moved downstairs; the woman does little but stay in the bed with the baby and feed her for the first twenty days of the little girl’s life. Friends and family bring round gifts; not dummies, bottles and toys with flashing lights and bells and whistles; they bring round meals, make her drinks, walk her dog and keep her house tidy. They ask her for permission before they take the baby from her for cuddles; she is happy to hand the girl to them though; it is good for the baby.

For forty days she rarely leaves the bed. Her husband has to do little but baby care either; he changes nappies and bathes the baby girl; his wife lies on her back and biologically nurtures the baby, who feeds as and when she wants, suckling to increase the mother’s milk supply until she has fountains of milk.

[Hang on a minute... this sounds familiar. This isn't a new thing in the wonderful world of breastfeeding utopia. This happened years and years and years ago, in the days before bottles and formula; before women were expected to "get back to normal" straight away; when women were given time to practise breastfeeding and time to bond with their babies. This is an ancient practice.]

Accentuate the positives – part one

Reading through the last few – well okay all – of my posts, I’ve realised that there is more than a tinge of negativity.

So I thought it was time to redress the balance and write a few positive posts.

I just wanted to say, I love breastfeeding. I didn’t always but there will be plenty of negative posts to say why not, but now, I love it.

Three reasons why I love breastfeeding 

I love it because if baby B is hurt – say, if he falls over from a sitting position when his mother should have been watching him – of course this would never happen, just if it ever did, not that it would -  a few minutes of suckling can change him back into a happy, contented baby.

If baby B is tired, a few seconds suckling can send him drifting into a peaceful sleep already in a lap-based position, leaving my hands free for computer or remote control.

I can do it lying down, and often it sends me to sleep too, so a daytime nap for baby B often ends up as a – much needed – daytime nap for us both.

Three things I love about breastfeeding

I love it when baby B has a suckle, then smiles at me and in doing so “falls” off the breast. It makes me smile too.

I love it when baby B pats – in fact, almost slaps – my breast to – I assume – make the milk flow faster. The look of intense concentration on his face his hilarious. I joke that he’s trying to have a milkshake!

I love it when baby B and I are bathing together and I’m holding him sitting up; he bends his head back, opens wide and latches himself on, as if to say, “while I’m here Mum, it’d be rude not to!”

Will try to think of more positives over the next few days.