I have now officially become obsessed with feeding. From the beginning, I've been determined to breast feed. I lived through the first two weeks of severe nipple pain (why do none of the books talk about how common this is?), made it through a bout of mastitis, and have braved public scrutiny on several occasions.
But now, as the boy's weight seems to continually drop in the charts and James has begun actively crying when I offer him my "bad" left breast (probably due to the hard lump of unmilked tissue that remains), I have begun to realise that motivation is not enough. I have to do some serious creative maintenence work.
Last night, my husband came upstairs to find me in an incredibly ridiculous position: holding baby under one arm, with his legs out behind my back, in an effort to allow him to approach the breast from a different direction. (yes, it worked - he actually took it.) If that stops working, I've read about even more ridiculous positions to try: 1) Baby on bed, me on all fours with breast dangling into his mouth; 2) baby slung over shoulder, with head approaching breast upside down.
These positions are crazy. Must babies be gymnasts in order to suckle contentedly? It all looked so easy in the government informational materials...
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