Emma Howard: I am Emma Howard and we are talking about breast feeding here on the Baby Channel. With me is Heather Welford, the NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor or A NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor, there are many -- and much -- Deborah and seven-and-a-half-month old Anna who is just lovely and very well fed. Now your little girl is taking solid, you have weaned her, very happily, very easily.
Deborah Power: Yeah.
Emma Howard: And she is on what, four feeds a day?
Deborah Power: Four breastfeeds and three solid meals.
Emma Power: So, you are in that great position now. You are looking to go back to work part time, but there is a big transition to be made here. I know, you are feeling quite confident about it. You said, she has made it easy for you?
Deborah Power: Yeah, she has, just the whole way through she is just sailing through things really.
Emma Howard: And not rejecting the food.
Deborah Power: She rejected the bottle, that's about three months, and I was trying to do mixed. Some mixed breast milk, and she took it fine for a couple of months. And then one day, she just decided that she wasn't going to have that anymore.
Emma Howard: That could be problematic, couldn't it Heather? If you are going back to work and your baby isn't taking the bottle. Why would they want the bottle when they have had the breast. It is often a conflict women have. Are there options open to you, if they don't take a bottle?
Heather Welford: Yes, you are absolutely right. It's quite a common question. Even when babies have been keeping up the two skills all the way through, they can certainly decide and communicate very forcefully what they like best. The good thing is that as a baby gets a bit older though, the mother has an option of giving fluid or express breast milk or whatever in a cup and I think you told us before Deborah that Anna can't take a cup, and she is getting a little bit more skilled at that.
Deborah Power: Yeah, and when we first started giving her water with her solid meals, she was quite dribbly and she would spit out quite a lot. But I have noticed in the last couple of weeks it's got much more --
Emma Howard: Might just get really more adapt each week, don't they? And when you think of an infant in the first year of life, you can pressure the progress so easily. One from one week to the next they can do things that they couldn't do the week before. So, you shouldn't think, they are not going to take that, you should keep going.
Heather Welford: Yeah, we often say, to mothers that it's not worth making the fight with the bottle, if you are talking a about a baby of five or six months, because they can take a cup, with help, I mean, they are not going to lean over the table and glug it down by themselves. You might need to hold the cup, I am sure you did it.
Emma Howard: And when you say, cup, you are not talking about an open cup, you are talking about with a beak and lid, with that different spout.
Heather Welford; Oh! Yeah with help babies can manage a proper grown up cup as well. Sometimes we suggest that parents try with a little egg cup. If the baby isn't even managing the sort of cup that you are taking about with a spout, they can try with a little egg cup or they can try, if you are very gentle with an ordinary cup. Obviously, you don't fill it to the brim.
Emma Howard: But we are terrified of the mess, aren't we? And our babies will be wet.
Heather Welford: Well, you don't want the poor babies face to be soaked out.
Emma Howard: We don't. So, we are always trying to protect that spillage, aren't we. So, we should be more confident. They can with our help, drink with an open cup.
Heather Welford: Yeah and if in desperate cases, you can get a bit of fluid down with a spoon and a cup. You can tip the fluid or even let the baby sip off a cup if you want to. Most babies don't need to do that, but you don't need to panic, if you are going back to work and your baby really doesn't want a bottle. If they know, what they like best of all.
Emma Howard: And she clearly does, she is communicating with all of us here, today. How are you going to manage this transition Deborah? I know, you are a women with a plan. You know, what you are going to do. Share it with us.
Deborah Power: Well, I intend if she is still interested by then, then I intend to still feed her myself in the morning when she wakes up, before I go to work.
Emma Howard: Right.
Deborah Power: And then, perhaps for her to have expressed milk during the morning and during the afternoon, when she would normally have a breastfeed.
Emma Howard: So, in a cup, if she wouldn't take the bottle.
Deborah Howard: Yeah, we'll try and I have taken advise on it that it shouldn't matter if she doesn't want to, she can adjust, she has other drinks throughout the day.
Emma Howard: Because she is on solid, so she is not relying completely on --
Deborah Howard: And she is really good at drinking water, she is having quite a lot, enough water in every meal now.
Emma Howard: Oh! She is a good girl, isn't she? Because not everybody out here, will be having such good luck.
Deborah Power: I anticipate to keep it on with the night feed, for as long as she wants it.
Emma Howard: And your night feed is at what time then?
Deborah Power: 7 O'clock when she goes to bed.
Emma Howard: And she is sleeping through from around 7 till 7, is she?
Deborah Power: Usually.
Emma Howard: She is an angle baby. They are not always as perfect as this on the Baby Channel, but she is showing us how it should be done. Look at you, you are very happy indeed. And do you have any idea about when you'll stop or what's going to guide you, how long you'll carry on for?
Deborah Power: I suppose, because I have come this far. I don't really want to start getting into formula now, when there's no reason. I am home looking after her, and even working part-time should hopefully be okay. So, I suppose until she is over one, I am happy to continue breastfeeding, if she still keen to be breastfed. I have to see how it goes. I don't have a strong, a don't have a date in mind about when it's too old, when it's too --
Emma Howard: People do. They generally have their -- I mean, sometimes there can be a pressure on breastfeeding mothers that keep a question how, long they are going to go there.
Heather Welford: Yes, as if there is some sort of artificial cut off date. But people can continue feeding for as long as they and the baby are happy. And the great thing that Deborah has discovered is how flexible breastfeeding is, once it becomes really well established as it is now.
Deborah can go to work, part time, she could even go to work full-time and without feeding the baby in the day, her breast milk supply would be robust enough to cope with that gap. Now, you can't do that if your baby is a month. You can't say, Oh! I am going to go six hours without feed.
Emma Howard: No, that would have an effect.
Heather Welford: Yeah, it would have an effect. Maybe at the start Deborah, might find it more comfortable to express when she is away from Anna for a whole day. But the longer it goes on, the more flexible breastfeeding is.
And I have known many women, I have had all sorts of odd hours and odd conditions and the breastfeeding remains as a constant. They manage to do that, and the nice thing about it is, that when you are away from your baby, that breastfeeding becomes a way of reconnecting with the baby after a working day and it's --
Emma Howard: Because that's an emotional separation, isn't it, going back to work?
Heather Welford: Yeah, well, breastfeeding is a part of the relationship that you have with your baby, when it's going as well, as it is with Deborah and Anna. And it'll be nice for both of them at the end of a working day, to say, hello to each other with a nice cuddly, snuggly breastfeed.
Emma Howard: And it is hard in the beginning, although you have actually had a fairly easy, time. I know that we have been talking about positions with other people and continue to do so. Did you find it fairly easy to find the right position with Anna, or did you have help and advise in the beginning?
Deborah: When she was first born, she was put straight on, giving a skin-to-skin contact, which we specified. And there she was too slippy, we just couldn't hold on to her. She was all over the place.
So the midwife came and helped me position her and wrapped her in a towel and we -- she showed me how to do it, and it took a few times, where she had to come back and show, just to help me get her attached. But then yeah, she taught it very quickly.
Emma Howard: And clearly so did you, because it really is about the both of you coming together isn't it?
Heather Welford: Yeah, it is.
Emma Howard: I had some pain on perhaps the third or fourth day and a lot of swelling, which was a bit of shock. But it generally, it's gone very well.
Emma Howard: Do you think she wants a feed now. She looks very happy and contended. She is not normally doing one about now, is she?
Deborah Power: It's a little bit early, but then she is a bit late with her lunch.
Emma Howard: Oh! She might feed first. Now, Heather if we watch Anna go until, because clearly this pairing is a very happy one. Let's say, if Anna will go and show us the correct position. She is mesmerizable, the characters around. Let's have a look, shall we Anna. Do you want to have a feed? She is astonished, she is way there.
Heather Welford: It's as if she knows what Deborah is going do to her.
Emma Howard: She has been looking in the corner there. She loves everybody, this girl. There is just too much going on there for feed, isn't there? But should we try? And again, as we have seen with other babies, and we are talking about breastfeeding, there is fidgeting if there's a lot going on and they are not particularly hungry, they are not going to stay on.
Heather Welford: No, that's right. And the baby of this age, has got so much learning to do, that it's easy to see that they are going to be destructed by all sorts of things.
Emma Howard: Let's have a look. What are you going to do Anna? Again, you are wearing a nursing bra, so it's much easier to do. And do you breastfeed her out, when you are in cafes's and things like that.
Deborah Power: Yeah, I do.
Emma Power: Do you find that very easy to do?
Deborah Power: I thought, I am getting used to it. When I first did it, I was quite pleased to be with people who were doing it as well.
Emma Howard: Yes, the support numbers.
[Cross Talk: 00:08:57-00:09:05]
Heather Welford: Now, Anna will know that, turning her head round and already opening her mouth really wide and I am distracting you as well. Ain't I Anna?
Emma Howard: It's because she is a much bigger baby. But she is demonstrating beautifully for us. This is sort of seven-and-a-half-month old feeding pattern. Do you find Deborah, that you have feeds like this all the time. She is on and off, can't she be quite focused?
Deborah Power: I think, I have so constructed it so that, she isn't distracted, because I just take her to a quiet place.
Emma Howard: You take her to a quite place?
Deborah Power: Because she has a sleep straight after this feed normally. Then I take her, just in her bedroom, where it's quite.
Emma Howard: So, we are really throwing that out today, aren't we? We bought her in.
Heather Welford: This is very typical, this sort of playing with mommy's hair and having a little sort of wave around with the hands.
Deborah Power: Holding also the neckline.
Emma Howard: Yes, I recently lost a jumper to my little one who pulled down on the V, so much that the stitching went off, I probably rattled the microphone when I did that. I am very sorry. But yes, they really like grasping up, don't t they. It's almost looks like they are needing.
Heather Welford: Some moms wear, what they call a nursing necklace. It's a chunky necklace. It's just an ordinary necklace, but it withstands the pulling and playing about that an older baby, will give it, and that gives baby something to focus on with their hands.
And sometimes it helps with this pulling off and looking around, that might be something for you to try Deborah, if you couldn't find a necklace that she can play with and have interest in, and then, she is less likely to be spinning around.
Emma Howard: That's a fantastic idea. I would try and save my jewelery. I haven't thought about buying one for the baby. What a brilliant idea. We must leave there for the moment ladies. But thank you very much Deborah, for bringing in Anna, who is clearly thriving. And thank you Heather.
Heather Welford: Thank you.
Emma Howard: Thanks.
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