A few months ago I received a call from the Mount Washington Valley Children's Museum asking me if I could come and do a presentation on Breastfeeding and Parenting for new mothers. (You can check out the press release here) I was honored and happy to do so. When I go there yesterday there was a sign outside with my name announcing my presentation. The Museum director was so positive and happy to have me there.
The discussion went great and I was so happy to have helped a group of new and veteran Moms with issues they were dealing with surrounding breastfeeding and mothering. The conference director asked if I could come back regularly to offer different presentations. I am leading a "Babywearing Workshop" there soon.
An interesting little tidbit. Two days ago I was mentioning to Joe that I wanted to use cloth diapers again with our new baby. He was sharing that it was too bad we sold all of our old ones that we used with the other kids. We put it out there to the Universe that we are looking for cloth dipes. Well, one of my talk attendees brought in a huge bag of brand new Newborn cloth diapers and asked if I knew anyone who wanted them! I was blown away! So, we are joyfully ready to wrap this little new baby bum in cottony softness! I was so grateful!!
5 comments:
Will there be any first time pregnant women at the talk about breastfeeding? Just a suggestion, these are somethings I wish my breastfeeding teachers had told me about when I was pregnant-
1. That breastfeeding doesn't have to be difficult.
2. One bottle doesn't *automatically* mean you can't nurse.
3. about re-lactation
4. about comfort nursing
5. You can still breastfeed even if you have a hospital birth.
6. That breastfeeding and nursing are so versatile that even women who have never been pregnant can do it, sometimes even men.
7. Most hospitals have lactation consultants on staff and can stand by as you give birth and help you breastfeed in the first hour or two.
Just some things to keep in mind??? All of the breastfeeding information I received when pregnant was extremely negative, very fear inducing, and most of it was not true. If I had never had such an education about it, I would have been a thousand percent more successful with breastfeeding. It's really hard for me to keep quiet about my experiences. I want to share everything I have learned in the past 4 months so that maybe it can help others. I don't know what kind of talk you are giving about breastfeeding, but I hope it's the positive kind I would give.
Hi Danielle,
Thank you for the suggestions. I had already conducted my discussion at the time I posted it on my blog. If you read it again you'll notice.
I appreciate the advice and info.
I conduct my discussions very Unschool-y in the sense that I direct my discussion to be catered to the individuals there. I ask what they would like to know about, and learn about and that is my starting point.
We covered many topics some of which you mentioned and some of which we did not, due to the fact that the participants were not interested in learning some of those things at this particular discussion. Maybe next time. ;)
I've conducted hundreds of discussions/meetings over the last 7 years being a LLL Leader and all of the things you bring up are great discussion starters! Thanks for posting them!!
Thanks again and peace be with you.
~Love, Dayna
Thanks for responding so kindly. An unschooly breastfeeding teacher would have been really nice, lol. Mine were a lot like the gestapo, but I digress. I think mainly, my advice/wish/whatever would be that breastfeeding was presented to women as something that really doesn't HAVE to be that impossibly hard. Everything I read and learned when I was pregnant just made it out to be BRAIN SURGERY. I realize that there are problems that do arise, but one thing my doctor told me when I was pregnant when I kept asking her about problems that might happen- she said, pretty much that those things have a really small chance of happening, and don't worry about them unless they do, and if they do, let's worry about it then. Same thing can be applied to breastfeeding, I think. If you focus too much on the negatives (at least this is what I believe happened with me) then you mentally start believing all the negative, and then you end up not being able to do it. Hope that makes sense.
Danielle, I don't know how old your baby is, but if you are interested in relactating it is totally possible! I have helped several women to relactate after even 9 months of not nursing.
The only reason I ask is that you seem really sad about breastfeeding not working out for you. Your local LLL Leader could totally help you if it was something you were interesting in doing.
~Peace to you, Dayna
October 4, 2007 9:18 PM
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