DH wanted me to call this entry “Tit-bits.” Hahahaha.
It was interesting. Not as many people as I thought (about 7 of us including the leader) so there wasn’t any sitting in the back. I only got overly emotional once- pat myself on the back.
There were 2 mamas with 2 month old babies. One was a BFing pro, the other was there for serious help. The 2nd lady’s baby wasn’t too keen on BFing for more than about 5 minutes. The leader, Desiree, helped some as she worked on feeding her during the class and asked anybody who wanted more help could stay after the meeting was over. Unfortunately, she left right away. I have a feeling she won’t be back and don’t really understand why she took the big step of coming if she wasn’t going to stay for help. The leader said she was fairly sure is was a bad latch problem and the baby could be totally off formula in about a week. She was a bit sad as well.
The remaining four of us were pregnant. One is due next week, one the next month, one the next month and then me in August. So there should be a new baby in each of the next 4 meetings or so. Should be fun!
Tonight’s main topic was weaning and low milk supply. Well, considering the crowd, we hardly touched weaning. Honestly, we talked about whatever issues we needed help with. It was nice that way. We got a few handouts. We chatted about how childbirth and interventions can affect your breastfeeding success… lots of other stuff.
I was the first one there since I had to search for the room and arrived early. The leader and I had just gotten into why I was there and I had told her just about anything she could name was a problem I had encountered when others started arriving. So over the course of the meeting we talked about various problems and I mentioned how difficult it was to get nurses and the like to stay away from bottles, how we syringe-fed him for a few days and how he had a tight frenulum that I had to wait 5 days til I was out of the hospital to deal with because my pediatrician didn’t believe in frenulectomies. But I don’t think she was suitably impressed with my dilemmas until I mentioned after class, as I hung around waiting to borrow a book or two, that I also have inverted nipples. She so understood that because the first thing she said was “Don’t give your new baby a bottle! Babies with tight frenulums have a really difficult time going back to the breast afterwards.” She had nicely summed up the beginning of the end of breastfeeding with Brendan.
I did learn about one thing pertaining specifically to inverted nipples- something called the piggyback hold. When you compress the areola, my nipple moves inward. I mentioned before that pushing the breast back into the chest helps to have it stick out more. Apparently, also holding the upper breast tissue, close to the areola, in a two finger pinch works too. You’d think it’d hurt but it doesn’t. Makes me think of a cat holding her kitten by the scruff of the neck though, lol. Can’t find anything on the net about it at all, curiously. Maybe I heard the name wrong.
This should be fun for all of us. I get adult conversation and much needed encouragement and help. Bren gets to play at an awesome indoor McDonald’s playplace nearby (seriously- the thing had 4 separate entrance towers just to get up into it!!) with other kids and DH gets to enjoy his enjoyment and read magazines. This particular night started with a comedy of errors though. Brendan fell asleep on the way to the restaurant. He had just woken up and got into the play tubes when I called saying my meeting was over. So, he wasn’t particularly thrilled to be taken away. So we went back afterwards and he got to run around with lots of other little boys that were surprisingly all around his age while I ate. He loved it!! And Lord help me but McDonald’s will now dip your ice cream cone in chocolate shell and it’s GOOD!