@abasket - yes, bathtime! Ah, the memories that keep on giving for a science teacher:
“How do we stop the baby from slipping? We can either increase the normal force (hug tighter!) or increase the coefficient of friction (dry him off!).”
“Fretfulteacher, are you talking about DS3? Our classmate?”
“Um…”
I liked nursing because it was so much easier for me than sterilizing bottles, nipples and other gear. Also, even tho we had introduced S to bottles early on, he refused them when I went back to work when he was 3 months old. Whomever watched him would bring him to my office where I’d eat lunch while nursing as in my closed office. S would also nurse as soon as I got home and every 90 minutes all night long! After 6 weeks of this craziness, I resigned from my job for a few years.
I think I didn’t produce that much milk when I had S—more stressed and probably not well enough hydrated.
With D who came along when S was 2, I was more relaxed and the milk just gushed. D slept through the night at 5 weeks!
I never got any advice on nursing from anyone (my mom was never able to do it, my older sister hated it, none of my friends mentioned it, the male pediatricians and OB/GYNs didn’t mention it either) but things seemed to work fine, even when D was hospitalized for a fever at 2 weeks, was still able to visit and nurse her and she did ok.
Not that my kids are interested in hearing about this but . . . I realize I was lucky, and happy, to have them both nurse until they self-weaned around 12 months or so. I was in a fortunate work situation so that I was home for 7-9 months, with only occasional pumping – but I can still remember the whoosh and grind of the dual pump. Both started with cereal/baby food around 6 months and continued to nurse, tapering off as they got older. Towards the end, they just had morning wake-up and a night time go-to-sleep nursing. As they got older, they found the rest of the world more interesting and would be twisting and turning to see what was happening around them. Then, they reached the point where they just couldn’t be bothered anymore to nurse at all. One (of the many) bittersweet moments of celebrating the movement to the next stage while wishing they could just stay exactly the way they were.