I'm a book person. The house is full of them, I buy far too many and the only thing holding me back from buying a Kindle is that I know it will bankrupt me - I could have a new book in 60 seconds? Oh, the terrible temptation! So of course when I got pregnant (no, I'm lying, even before that I was buying pregnancy books) I got tonnes of books. How to get pregnant, baby books, all of that. So it's been a bit of a shock that all those books have not been the ones to help me out on those occasions when something odd has happened with the baby. The only solutions were online, via my bestest internet friend, Google. First up, salty milk...
Initially my son breastfed beautifully for a couple of days. Then he suddenly started turning his face away from my right breast with a look of distaste while enthusiastically drinking from the left breast. "Ah yes," said the midwives. "It's because on the left breast he can hear your heartbeat. Just try different holds, he'll get used to the other one." So, being new to this breastfeeding lark I dutifully tried many different holds and even squeezed out a little milk so that as the nipple went in the mouth it already had milk on it - this, I thought, would encourage him. He turned away with even greater disgust. Finally I turned to Google. And found... sometimes a slow-flowing breast's milk will taste salty. I got the breast pump out and tried the result. It tasted like a glass of milk with a teaspoon of salt stirred in. Vile. It took three full pumping-outs and throwing away the milk before suddenly it tasted sweet again and of course he drank from it again quite happily. That took a week to figure out, by which time my left breast was huge and my right breast was normal-sized. Thankfully, once he drank again from both the size evened out again... otherwise I would have ended up quite seriously lop-sided! I told two midwives and two health visitors about this, none of them had ever heard of it. Spread the word.
Lots of milk sounds like a nice problem to have, but it can lead to your baby getting tonnes of fore milk (sugary and a bit watery, digests very fast) and not so much hind milk (fattier, digests slower). They then demand feeding again very quickly and get more of the same. You end up feeding them very frequently, meanwhile they often have a gassy tummy and your breasts enthusiastically produce even more milk, convinced that the increased demands for feeding mean your single baby has magically been turned into triplets. And so on... This time Google offered up La Leche League, which had a great article on the problem and how to fix it. This hugely improved matters and has also helped another friend who recognised the same problem when I described what had happened to me.
Because most of us no longer live in a small community we have lost our pool of experienced mothers that we newbies might turn to for advice, to hear about the more unusual problems and the solutions we could implement. But in compensation we have gained an extraordinary global community - the forums are full of advice from mothers and organisations across the world. This community is an amazing thing to reach out to for help - without wishing to turn into a total hypochondriac who runs to the internet to see if her baby has developed Housemaid's Knee, of course.
So thank you, Google. I owe you a breast.
Initially my son breastfed beautifully for a couple of days. Then he suddenly started turning his face away from my right breast with a look of distaste while enthusiastically drinking from the left breast. "Ah yes," said the midwives. "It's because on the left breast he can hear your heartbeat. Just try different holds, he'll get used to the other one." So, being new to this breastfeeding lark I dutifully tried many different holds and even squeezed out a little milk so that as the nipple went in the mouth it already had milk on it - this, I thought, would encourage him. He turned away with even greater disgust. Finally I turned to Google. And found... sometimes a slow-flowing breast's milk will taste salty. I got the breast pump out and tried the result. It tasted like a glass of milk with a teaspoon of salt stirred in. Vile. It took three full pumping-outs and throwing away the milk before suddenly it tasted sweet again and of course he drank from it again quite happily. That took a week to figure out, by which time my left breast was huge and my right breast was normal-sized. Thankfully, once he drank again from both the size evened out again... otherwise I would have ended up quite seriously lop-sided! I told two midwives and two health visitors about this, none of them had ever heard of it. Spread the word.
Lots of milk sounds like a nice problem to have, but it can lead to your baby getting tonnes of fore milk (sugary and a bit watery, digests very fast) and not so much hind milk (fattier, digests slower). They then demand feeding again very quickly and get more of the same. You end up feeding them very frequently, meanwhile they often have a gassy tummy and your breasts enthusiastically produce even more milk, convinced that the increased demands for feeding mean your single baby has magically been turned into triplets. And so on... This time Google offered up La Leche League, which had a great article on the problem and how to fix it. This hugely improved matters and has also helped another friend who recognised the same problem when I described what had happened to me.
Because most of us no longer live in a small community we have lost our pool of experienced mothers that we newbies might turn to for advice, to hear about the more unusual problems and the solutions we could implement. But in compensation we have gained an extraordinary global community - the forums are full of advice from mothers and organisations across the world. This community is an amazing thing to reach out to for help - without wishing to turn into a total hypochondriac who runs to the internet to see if her baby has developed Housemaid's Knee, of course.
So thank you, Google. I owe you a breast.
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