Search Results for: blog what you need to know about nipple confusion

Ask a Baby Blogger: Breastfeeding and Bonding

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Question: I’m tired of hearing breastfeeding advocates say that breastfeeding promotes bonding. I mean, am I really messing up bonding with my baby if I bottle feed? What’s the big deal? To answer this question, you have to understand the mechanisms by which someone makes a statement like that. The short answer is yes, breastfeeding really has a monumental effect on bonding with your infant. The other short answer is no, if you don’t breastfeed, you baby will not likely experience attachment and psychological issues for the rest of his life. What Are We Really Saying About Bonding? Let’s first … Continue reading →

Baby Blog in Review: April Thus Far

What can I say other than ‘oops’? I forgot to post a week in review for the baby blog last week. I was just coming back from vacation, had mountains of laundry and other sundry things to take care of and well, I just forgot. So this week, I will bring you the baby blog review starting from April 1st! Sunday, April 1 April started off controversially with a blog entitled Weak White Males and the Difference Race Makes in Preemies. This is a discussion on the statistical tendency for males, especially caucasion males to mature the slowest in the … Continue reading →

Un-confusing the Nipple Confused Baby

Just in case I didn’t make the point perfectly clear in my last blog, the easiest thing to do is to avoid nipple confusion entirely by not giving the baby anything besides your breast until breastfeeding is well established–this includes pacifiers and/or bottles of expressed milk! However, if your baby is hospitalized that just might not be possible. For us, we already had other children at home and I simply couldn’t be at the hospital for every feeding. There was no other alternative but to feed Meghan bottles while I was not there. While most babies transition easily between breast … Continue reading →

What You Need to Know About Nipple Confusion

From everything that I read before beginning to breastfeed, I thought that nipple confusion was the end all to nursing and THE thing to prevent from happening. In my mind, it was one of the worst things that could happen to you and your baby. Now I’ve been nursing at least one baby for eight years, and I know better. There are worse things that can happen than nipple confusion. Mastitis, thrush, or dealing with a poor latch are all more painful than nipple confusion. Nipple confusion is when a young baby is introduced to too many different types of … Continue reading →

Breastfeeding Preemies in a NICU is Different

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Breast milk is absolutely the best food you can give your newborn. Not only does it provide numerous immunological benefits, but the breast milk of a mother who has given birth too early contains substantially more calorie packing fat than does the breast milk of a mother who has given birth at a full 40 weeks gestation. One difficulty in breastfeeding a preemie for some mothers is that good practices in giving breast milk to a preemie while he/she is in the NICU may well go against everything that the new mother has read or heard about breastfeeding. Here are … Continue reading →

Supplementing: Why I Did It, When It’s Okay and When It’s Not

This blog is in response to someone’s specific question. The reader aptly pointed out that while I advise against supplementing, I have talked about doing it with my younger three children. She asked for further explanation and so in my first blog, I talked about why supplementing is a bad idea if you really want to breastfeed. In short, if you do supplement, it will decrease your supply. So Why Did I Supplement? My first two babies were the latch on king and queen of the world. I honestly believed that people who gave up just didn’t really want to … Continue reading →

Valorie’s Breastfeeding Index

Later today I will post a review of the baby blog of 2007 so why does breastfeeding get its own category? Well, in part as an answer to readers who want to read what I’ve written on breastfeeding. I’ve written so much on breastfeeding at this point that you all have asked for an index of sorts so it’s easier to find what you’re looking for. It’s also in part because I’ve become known as the breastfeeding lady. . .guru. . .whatever you want to call it. I’ve been at this breastfeeding business for a long time and many of … Continue reading →

Hospital Staff Bullies vs. Parental Rights Part 3

If you haven’t read the first two blogs in this series, you may want to before delving into this blog. The story makes more sense as a whole. . .but is too long to tell in one blog. You can read the first part here and the second part here. To quickly summarize: We were in the hospital discussing our ‘options’ as we disagreed with the hospital’s treatment plan regarding our newborn daughter, Meghan. Almost the End of the Story Meghan was not nursing well, as by this time she had had numerous bottles and not a lot of time … Continue reading →

Hospital Staff Bullies vs. Parental Rights Part 2

I left off last time sharing our story of the birth of our 3rd daughter. You may remember that I’ve written about her before. . .but I’ll get to that. If you haven’t read the first blog, I suggest you do so as it will help you understand this one a little better. The Strenuous Job of the Nursing Staff Nursing is a tough job. I’m sure it’s harder in an inner city hospital. However, bringing a baby back to a mother or notifying her that her baby is hungry is not optional depending on how busy it is. Giving … Continue reading →

Hospital Staff Bullies vs. Parental Rights

This blog is in response to some comments made on another blog that I recently wrote about a man who was stunned with a tazer gun and as a result dropped his baby, whom he was trying to carry out of the hospital. Clearly, after hospital and police statements were made, the picture has changed slightly. However, I find in talking with new moms that what I call “the hospital staff bully” phenomenon, is alive and well, even if there is more to this one particular story. While most of us probably have more common sense and access to resources … Continue reading →