You can take your advice and...

One piece of advice that was given to me, quite sometime ago now, about becoming a parent was to listen to all advice that people offered and be ready to dismiss about 95% of it as useless.

I have found that even though this is not the first time around for us we are still getting advice hurled at us left right and centre! Are people looking at Peanut and thinking that we stuffed up so badly with him that we need to be set straight?

One thing i have found SOOOOOOO much easier time around is feeding, when Peanut was born i had no idea what to do are how to do it that it took us a few days to figure out how to feed and then a couple more to get into a really good rhythm. This time around, i did learn from my previous experience, Bean and i got into a good feeding rhythm right away. She fed like a trooper and i felt like a feeding pro.

When we got home from the hospital we had a couple of visits from the hospital midwives (this is normal...) and of course they had to have a look around Beans room to make sure it is "babyh safe" as well as check that i am feeding confidently. The look around the room went well - it had babsicaly just had Peanut moved out, the sheets changed from blue to pink and the clothes in the drawers changed from nearly 3 y/o boys to newborn girls.

But when it came time to checking my feeding technique, though i felt i displayed confidence in holding Bean and she fed no problems, the midwife had a suggestion of rolling a cloth nappy and placing it between her and my body - to get us into a better position, a more comfortable position for Bean. I took this advice and practiced it with every feed.

The next midwife visit and again the baby room and feeding technique had to be checked, and again there were no problems found with Bean's room. I should also point out at the time the midwives were visiting Bean was yet to move into her room - she was still sleeping the bassinette in our room, but anyway...

So the midwife then asked to see me feed Bean and asked by i was placing a rolled up nappy between us. I told her that it was a suggestion from the previous midwife, and she agreed that it was a good trick... She then made a suggestion of her own, to change the way that I lay Bean down next to me. I took this advice and practiced it with every feed.

Bean and i went then went through a few weeks of awkward, uncomfortable feeding. At first i blamed this on one "side" producing differently than the other and that Bean had a tendency to want to turn her head one way rather than the other.

M34tb4LL then pointed out that prior to adapting the midwives suggestion on how to improve my feeding postion Bean and i had no feeding problem, so i stopped using their advice and low and behold - Bean went back to feeding better and for longer, meaning longer between feeds and a happier Bean all round really!

So here is the question that has been left behind from this experience - if a person is doing a task very well and not experiencing any problems when they are being visited by a professional, does the professional feel that they still have to provide information on how to improve the task being preformed? Or in other words, did the midwives not like that fact that i did not need their help and gave it anyway?

I have not very few complaints about the the service we received from the hospital and for the most time for the post care that we have received. But where it comes to the advice they gave me on feeding:

"Thanks for your input but i don't need it, please take your advice and shove it. I'm doing fine, great even and you can not make better so don't bother trying"

:) Reggie