They say a baby’s tummy is only the size of their clenched fist, and that’s why they need to eat little and often. Well, with David, that explains an awful lot. Like why he can put away half a demi-baguette with ham and mozzarella, or four potato faces, five Quorn nuggets, and baby spaghetti, and still have room afterwards for grapes and dried apricots and raisins and fruit pouches (plural). It also explains why he’s hungry for milk half an hour after he’s finished eating, and why I happily oblige.
I wanted to check that I wasn’t overfeeding him, that he wasn’t eating too much because I was making the portions so big, usually so I can nick half of it and David will still have enough. A sensible person would have asked the Internet, and I have no idea why I didn’t: my Babycentre addiction is getting out of hand! (Oh pre-loved cloth nappy board, how I love you…) However, I didn’t have my sensible hat on, so I thought I’d take David to the baby clinic, have him weighed, and have a chat with the Health Visitor. Big mistake.
His weight was fine: he dropped from the 91st centile to the 75th somewhere between his nine month check and the first visit to our new clinic a month ago, and he’s stayed happily on the line on the chart. As Joe was getting David dressed again, I asked her about the eating thing. (This is paraphrased, I should’ve written it down straight afterwards but I was too annoyed to.)
“What does he usually have at mealtimes?”
“Breakfast is porridge or Weetabix, fruit, and toast. Lunch is his main meal, so usually something like Quorn nuggets with potato and veg, or a little pizza, and then for dinner he’ll have something like a sandwich or baby spaghetti on toast as he’s less hungry then. He eats plenty of fresh and dried fruit for pudding, too.” (No need to tell her that it’s mostly grapes!)
“What’s his milk intake like?”
“He usually has a 4oz bottle of goats’ milk in the morning when he gets up with his dad, then a breastfeed before his morning nap, and another short one before his afternoon nap, and then either a couple of ounces of goats’ milk or a breastfeed in the evening before bed.”
“Does he drink anything other than milk?”
“Yes, he has juice with lunch and a cup of water that he carries around with him while he’s playing so he can drink when he wants to without having to ask.”
“Well, I think his milk intake is too high, and he’s filling up on milk instead of eating properly. He’s also having too much to drink. Swap the morning feed he has before his nap for a snack, and give him water instead of milk before his afternoon nap.”
Well, it wasn’t what I asked, but… She continued:
“He doesn’t really need breastmilk at fourteen months, anyway. He should have cows’ milk in a cup, morning and evening.”
Hang on, rewind that a minute? He doesn’t need breastmilk? Even though the WHO recommend breastfeeding until the age of two and beyond, even though I’m still trying to get my supply up and even though I’ve been to hell and back in the last couple of weeks with biting and sore boobs and worry, what I’m doing is pointless. Right, great. And cows’ milk? I’d already explained that he has an intolerance to it, that it gives him an awful tummy ache and awful nappies. (He can eat things with a small amout of cows’ milk in, but he can’t drink it.)
I pretended to agree, pretended that I’d try what she suggested. I have no intention of taking his daytime milk away and I have no intention of feeding him cows’ milk instead. I know now that he’s eating the right amount of food for him: he’s the right shape and he’s going to be skinny like his daddy. I know now that he’ll self-regulate his food intake, and that breastfeeding helps him to do this. I just feel that somebody who is trained to encourage women to feed their babies in the most natural way possible should be more supportive of and educated about extended breastfeeding. At the time, I felt incredibly disheartened, and I’d worry how she’d treat a new mum who wasn’t confident about breastfeeding, how she would’ve treated me when I was struggling this time last year.
So, here’s my question: was I unreasonable to be upset and disheartened by her reaction? And if so, what do I do about it?
And here’s the bigger question: if someone trained to support breastfeeding is so ignorant of the benefits, what can we do about it? How can we change things for the better? And what about wider society as a whole: are people able to learn to be more tolerant and accepting of it without health professionals being educated as well as they should be? Should extended breastfeeding be viewed as the norm? If not, why not? I’m really looking forward to hearing your views on this one: lurkers, please leave me a comment, even if it’s an anonymous one.
Also? I’m doing fine, and so is David.
