Have you guys seen this video?
I wish that I had known about this when kids were born. My daughter and I had latch issues that probably stemmed from the way we were taught to nurse. The technique used four years ago was to wait for the baby to open her mouth as wide as possible, then jam her quickly onto the breast. I could never get the timing right. Her mouth had always started to close by the time I got her latched on. Eventually we got it right, but those first couple of weeks were tough.
that totally blew my mind. amazing. i will probably evangelize about the breast crawl to every open-minded expectant mother i meet. sigh.
you go willem! i so wish i’d seen that. i, too learned the “wait for open mouth, jam mouth around nipple” technique. we had horrendous difficulty getting a good latch, which led to a shredded nipple :’(, which required an extended rest from nursing on that side, which led to clogged ducts and mastitis.
the plethora of “harmless” drugs coursing through both of our systems from the c-section probably didn’t help, either–a whole 'nother story.
the important message this video offers me: let the kid figure some things out on his/her own! we do so much pre-emptive “teaching” that takes away from our kid’s growth. the patience with which the parents and other helpers in that video gave that child the gift of self-determination speaks volumes. i love it!!!
did anyone read The Continuum Concept? This reminds me of the way the Yequana let the kids figure out their own limits around the hazards of their environment (cliffs, fire, knives. . .). Parents of our young children run themselves ragged, chasing the kids around so they won’t ever get hurt. Granted, we no longer have a whole ancient system around us that supports that way of living, but what an important thing to try to bring back so our rewilded kids can benefit from long forgotten wild instincts. . .
:o 8) I’ll take it to the grave! 
I feel glad that you all like it. I love to see men who support breastfeeding 
Yarrow Dreamer, ITA! Actively teaching children probably wastes time and energy without accomplishing much.
I would put in the caveat, “Unless it’s something they’re interested in learning.”
I can tell my son (19 mos old) 'till I’m blue in the face that I don’t want him getting on the table, but it doesn’t do any good. But if I show him how to open a door, he’s all over it. So actively teaching them something that goes against their learning grain doesn’t accomplish much, but actively teaching them something they want to know jumps their learning up a notch, as they can then apply that knowledge to other things they want to learn.
Unless my kid is just a weirdo. Which may be the case. He and I both seem pretty odd. 
Nope!
If my Maggie (7yrs) wants to learn fractions, she’ll let me teach her fractions. If she wants to learn to crochet, she’ll let her mother teach her to crochet. If she wants to know if she can eat something she found, she’ll ask me. But it’s gotta be on her terms or else forget about it. ;D
Yeah who wants to force anyone anyway!? Come on! :-*
When I first thought breast crawl I thought of a body skill that I could possibly do ‘on MY chest’. Now I know it…for myself…as one, the first one on dry land! I feel like this subject would also go well under Health, Healing & Movement.
I don’t imagine that the breast crawl would go as smoothly if the baby had received drugs via a hospital birth. I have heard that 90+ percent of hospital births are medicated.
My first birth, unmedicated, took place at a hospital birthing center, and the nurse actually gasped when my baby pushed up onto her knees like the baby in the breast crawl video.
That’s true. I saw another breast crawl video that said most (I can’t remember the percentage) babies whose mothers had had medication did not do the breast crawl and had a weak suck. I wish I could find that other video, but I can’t remember the name of it.
I’m new around here, and this is my first post. Not a typical topic for a first post, but this topic just jumped out at me.
I breastfed my son, now 3, until he was a year old. The first few days were pure torture. Shredded doesn’t even begin to describe it when you look down and realize you’ve got cracked, bleeding blisters on top of blisters in such a delicate area. I talked with several nurses, lactation consultants, doctors, other mothers who had breastfed, even complete strangers in waiting rooms and at the line in the grocery and all to no success. It wasn’t until I’d nearly fallen asleep while trying to (painfully and unsuccessfully) get him to latch on that I finally realized what I was doing wrong. I was listening to everyone except the two most important people of the moment. As I laid there (sitting wasn’t an option, I was too close to falling over asleep while sitting up) wondering what we should do instead of what we were being told, the little sneak wiggled around to what would end up his favorite position for the next 12 months and latched on with a totally painless yet voracious effort and we were good to go from then on. He did everything he wasn’t supposed to do and it went perfectly from then on out.
I wish someone had shown us a video like that before I shredded myself trying to make him do what he didn’t want to do!
Welcome, Ozish!
Yah, I feel your pain on the shreds. . . oof! but how fabulous that you guys found a moment of peace to figure it out on your own. Lucky kid!
After reading some in the beauty section, I was reminded of a wonderful product I found during the time that I was healing from my shredding.
Lanolin saved my sanity! I kid you not, medical grade lanolin did wonders. Anyone reading this and thinking about or doing the breastfeeding thing should run out and get some today. This stuff is the miracle product so many people have never heard of that’s been around for ages. I now give a tube of it to every woman who invites me to her baby shower. It’s bliss on cracked nipples, which is what it’s generally sold for, but works on so many other things. Chapped lips and hands sigh in relief with just a smidge, and so do those raw chins and upper lips on tiny tots with colds. My all time favorite use is on chapped butts, aka diaper rash. From pink to bleeding hamburger butt raw, even with a yeast infection (when combined with a bit of sunlight), this stuff clears things up in a hurry.
My son had a pretty nasty case of diaper rash that was heading towards hamburger butt in a hurry. We couldn’t figure out at the time what was causing him to get so red and sore, so I bought some cream from the store and gave it a try. Dummy me didn’t read the ingredients list until AFTER he screamed in bloody murder style the instant it touched his bottom. WTF? It had alcohol in it! Who in their right minds puts that in something that’s going on a sore baby bottom?!?! I tossed it in a hurry and started looking around the house for anything to keep the skin on his butt dry while I put a diaper on him (my carpet was seriously suffering much to my landlord’s dismay, but it was Bob’s butt or the carpet and I chose Bob’s butt). Eventually I ended up with a tub of vaseline and tube of lanolin. Each cheek got something different and the better looking one at the end of the day was the winner, or that was my plan. One diaper change later and it was clear that the nice, natural lanolin was doing a whole lot better. Quite literally we went from bleeding to normal in 2 days. My neighbor/babysitter saw it and used it on her little girl from day one. At 3 years old she’s never had a diaper rash even through potty training.
My new Grand son Jasper arrived last night. He seems to have the breast feeding thing figured out already. This is my daughters third so she knows how it’s done too.
I can attest to the wonders of Lanolin. Never used it on my butt, or anyone else’s, but I get awful “barista finger” when I don’t use it.
Congrats heyvictor!
comfrey salve