Words for Moms

Posts Tagged ‘maternal instinct’

My daughter is dedicated to her new role as a mother. She spends most of her day feeding baby Katherine, the way nature intended. It is challenging enough to nurse a baby, but sometimes I think doctors make it even more difficult than it needs to be. First, they wanted her to record all feedings. I can handle that for a newborn, just to keep track and make sure that the mom is feeding the baby enough. Katherine is definitely eating well. She has grown out of her newborn clothes and has cute little chubby arms. Erin called today, and told me that the doctors wanted her to wake up Katherine if she falls asleep while nursing and keep her awake for 30 minutes after nursing. The doctor doesn’t want to baby to learn to associate “sleeping” with Erin. The Katherine quickly learned to associate eating with her mom. It took about one day to figure that out! Does that mean that Katherine will only be able to eat when her mom is around???

I guess I blew it on my four children. They all fell asleep while feeding, and I would try and see if I could get them into their infant seat or crib without waking them so that I could have a few minutes to rest, do laundry, eat a meal, take a bath, or clean house. Maybe I am dating myself, but when my kids were small the rule of thumb in the case of a health baby was “don’t wake a sleeping baby” (unless of course they were sleeping more than 5 hours).

I would be curious to hear others opinions on this.

My word of encouragement for today is that doctors don’t know everything. I would Sometimes you need to go with common sense and natural maternal instinct. On the other side, if you feel that something is not right with your child and the doctor isn’t taking you serious, go get another opinion!!