The Longest Shortest Time

The Perfect Latch

Sasha turned one yesterday. It made me think all kinds of things, but lately I’ve especially been thinking about nursing. How I told myself I was going to stop at twelve months. And now here we are. Twelve months. But I feel like we’ve just recently gotten the hang of this breastfeeding thing. Am I ready to give this up when I’ve finally nailed the ability to place my daughter in the general vicinity of my chest and have her magically look just like the serene, satisfied example babies in breastfeeding handouts—no yanking her head back, no more plugged ducts, no more leaking through my shirt during meetings?

Back in the beginning, nursing was just one more struggle in a heap of other struggles. At Sasha’s first pediatrician appointment, when she was five days old, the doctor checked her out and as he was leaving he told us we were welcome to stay in the room as long as we liked to breastfeed. Oh, how nice, I thought. I love this guy, I love this office! And then I thought, Wait a minute. How? How could I possibly feed Sasha here in this flimsy chair without my castle of props and pillows? How would I be able to lift her to exactly the right height? Get her ear, shoulder, and hip neatly aligned? Place her face in just the right spot so that she’d tilt her head and open wide for the perfect latch? We gave it a try but there was just no way it was going to work. Like trying to fit an American plug into an outlet in a foreign country. It had been three hours since Sasha had last eaten. One hour longer than she usually went. We had to rush home with her wailing like a siren in the backseat, never letting us forget we were in a state of emergency. One of the pluses of breastfeeding is supposed to be convenience. You always have your baby’s food with you, no matter where you go—like a lunchbox inside your body. What a weird thing to have that food directly in front of your child’s mouth and have it be impossible to nourish her.

Turns out, there are lots of options you have to make things easier on yourself if you allow yourself to not breastfeed exclusively. Options they don’t usually tell you about in classes. The next couple LST podcast episodes are going to be about breastfeeding. First up: a woman who finds a surprising solution to her inability to nurse successfully. Pregnant ladies and new moms, pay close attention to this one. I promise, you’ll find it extremely helpful when those feelings of inadequacy sneak up on you.