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TRIPLE
NIPPLES AND EARLY WEANING Babies in breastfeeding
cultures usually nurse for at least 2 years. Yet babies in the YOUNG BABIES don't just wean.
They wean to another
food source. A bottle nipple is a very
effective teaching tool that tends to deliver milk no matter what the
baby does. A soft breast needs to be drawn
in and shaped by the baby, and delivers milk only when the baby "does
it right". The baby who learns the bottle
lesson finds that it doesn't work on a breast. The
bottle may become a more rewarding food source... and the baby weans to
it. The early use of bottles, and also of
pacifiers, is linked to nursing problems and early weaning. OLDER BABIES nurse for emotional reasons as
well asfor food. In our bottle-feeding
culture, some mothers are reluctant to nurse more often than every few
hours, to nurse in public, to nurse at night, to nurse for sheer
pleasure. They may feel more "normal"
putting a rubber nipple in the baby's mouth than meeting his emotional
needs through frequent nursing. If bottles
have been more freely given than nursing, if a pacifier or thumb has
been a more reliable source of comfort than mother's breast, a baby may
tire of negotiating for nursings and wean. HOW CAN YOU PREVENT EARLY
WEANING? By nursing the age-old way:
for comfort as much as for food. By
not needing a reason for nursing, but letting yourself and your baby
keep in touch with each other through frequent nursing.
By not using bottles or pacifiers as a regular substitute
for yourself. By mothering your baby at
the breast, not just feeding your baby at the breast.
This relaxed, easy-going approach to breastfeeding
actually takes far less energy
and less thought than formal
"feedings". A "NURSING STRIKE" is a baby's very sudden
reluctance to nurse, whether or not he is accustomed to rubber nipples. It is not the same as being ready to wean
(which happens gradually), but signals some discomfort in the baby's
life: an earache or stuffy nose,house
guests, teething, a parent's new job, being scolded for biting. Nursing strikes are fairly common... and
fixable. If your baby "goes on strike,"
call a breastfeeding specialist or La Leche League for suggestions that
will ease you both back into happy breastfeeding. Nursing
the baby in his sleep, for instance, is a time-honored way of ending a
strike. EVERY BABY IS AN INDIVIDUAL. Some
babies are simply ready to stop nursing before their mothers thought
they would be. But you'll probably find
that your breastfeeding relationship is happier, stronger, easier, and
comes to a more satisfying end if you stick to the basics:
mother, baby, breast, and time together. ©2006 DianeWiessinger, MS,
IBCLC www.normalfed.com |
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