La Leche League, Lunch, and Language

[ailbhe]

La Leche League

I went to my first meeting today. It was very pleasant, but I was the only one there when I arrived with a toddler. The others were all about 7 months. I felt pretty conspicuous. Luckily the fact of its being LLL made me comfortable enough - but having had no breastfeeding problems made me an outsider again.

We did a little exercise designed to show how small a proportion of our children's lives is actually spent in intensive parenting, which was pretty nice. And a bit about our hopes for our children, which made me uncomfortable, because that's a bit close to having plans. Some people were perfectly comfortable saying "I hope she has children because I want to be a grandmother" or "I hope he gets some kind of professional qualification because I want him to be able to look himself in the mirror and be independent" which makes me... nervous.

I met a woman who is tandem nursing! She loves it! I knew it wasn't all drudgery. And I met a woman whose baby vomited blood. I had no problems. My god. No problems at all.

The La Leche Library was there - I borrowed a book about Caesarean births with a foreword by Sheila Kitzinger. It's interesting - it does cover my situation, but the book is copyright 1991, so a bit out of date in some ways. I read it over lunch, after Linnea went to sleep. Of course I cried.

Lunch

I left the meeting late due to near-terminal disorganisation on my part, and so Linnea's lunch was late. We had to get a bus back into town, and that meant folding the buggy and having her on my lap, along with the nappy bag and the lunchbox. OK, fine. Initially she got a lot of compliments on being well-behaved (when we get on a bus with a folded buggy, she sits on the floor, because generally the driver doesn't wait for us to get safely settled before moving off) and quiet, so when she got fussy later it was kindly tolerated. She fell asleep, briefly, on my shoulder, and when we got off the bus, someone helped us off with the buggy. Then I had to unfold it, so I had to stand her on the path.

She threw a minor tantrum at being put down and hit her head on the footpath. There's a graze, now. I unfolded the buggy, put all the bags on the ground, and picked her up and soothed her. Then I held her on my knee and unpacked the lunchbox and fed her grapes until she was calmer. I got some funny looks from people who overheard me saying "It's ok, darling, we can have lunch right here if you want to, I'm sorry," but for some reason I wasn't bothered the way I usually am - I was able to smile back at them without grim determination. Perhaps hunger is good for serenity, or perhaps I'm just more confident in my parenting decisions.

I got her as far as Cafe Iguana and walked in. There were a few non-folding chairs so I nabbed them. The staff were great - one girl came up to me and asked if I needed a highchair ("No, she'll kick it over, but can I have a glass of water with a straw for her?") and then they left us alone until I had settled Linnea calmly and had a chance to breathe. Then they took my order. They know exactly what's in their food so I was able to have leek and potato soup, sorbet, and tea. Linnea shared the soup. Then she got up for a wander around the cafe, where she was well-received by everyone, and then she grizzled and went into the buggy. And then I paced her to sleep.

The Tot Seat got a lot of positive comments, too.

I read my book, discovered I'd left my phone numbers leaflet and Linnea's sippy cup in the LLL meeting, and got a bus to clinic.

Language

By the time I was 15 months old, I had 100 words. Linnea is almost 14 months old, and, like most babies her age, has almost no words recognisable by the average man on the number 38 to Clapham, or whatever the bus is. But certain of my family have asked me more than once how her verbal development is coming along (the first such question was when she was 9 months old) and I've been getting nervous.

So I went to the health visitor who was lovely. It's Esme! She's back! She's not leaving until September! I am so pleased. We like Esme. She likes us. And she told me that next time they ask I can say that most 18 month old babies have between 6 and 20 words, but not all, and it's not a matter for concern if they don't. I feel better armed with information. Otherwise I'd have to kill anyone who put my baby down, and that's counterproductive, from a close maternal bond point of view.

The holiday has been sorted out - Rob and I get ten days with my mother in serene bliss, then he goes away and I get a succession of visitors, including people I want to see, people I don't mind seeing, and unknown quantities I'm slightly afraid of. Then I get about three days to recuperate in the warm and welcoming home if a kindred spirit, which will be...

Wonderful.

Comments

[meirion.livejournal.com]

OT: i am getting the impression that the wife of one of my office-mates may have suffered injuries during childbirth that were quite similar to yours, but neither my office-mate nor his wife appears to be able to articulate this well enough to the NHS to get them to do anything. is there any kind of service i should be directing them towards, or any useful advice i can give them?

-m-

[ailbhe]

I don't have links handy right now, but Google for:

The Birth Trauma Association
Sheila Kitzinger

Also, the BabyCentre UK "Difficult Birth Debriefing" board might be useful.

A good first step is to write and request copies of the medical notes (as per Data Protection Act, small admin fee may apply). There may be nothing the NHS can do, or she may be able to meet a medical professional at the hospital to discuss the notes, as I did.

If the Health Visitor is good, they can talk to her (I've never met a male health visitor).

As to the *physical* injuries: She will need to write down what's wrong, if she can't get it out in speech, and hand it to her GP, who will then have to perform yet another fucking exam. She may find it helpful to print pictures off the internet and draw what's wrong on them; I did this before writing my list of symptoms and found it very helpful. I *strongly* recommend she not go alone. I also recommend she find a GP she's comfortable with for this, as otherwise it will make everything worse. If the GP says it's all ok and she knows it's not, she can ask for a second opinion from a different practice, or demand to be referred to a real gynaecologist (it will be a gynaecologist in the first instance, a colo-rectal specialist referral rarely happens straight off).

Meanwhile, she can get nurofen plus or cocodamol OTC and they both help, and they are ok while breastfeeding in extremis, even though they're not recommended.

[the-warwick.livejournal.com]

There's such a lot that I want to comment on there.

I've never really taken LLL seriously. A bit too militant in *appearance* for my tastes. They need better PR.

The bus thing. I did for the first time last week. Bus drivers being in a hurry to get on was something I remembered from 15 years ago. When I paid, I told him to wait while I stashed the buggy and got Rhiannon safely sat before pulling away please. He did.

Feeding her while sat on the pavement.. yep I'm that confident now too. It seems as though it comes to you with experience. The tot-seat looks to be something I wish I'd heard of 6 months ago. Rhiannon's happy in high chairs or on knees so it is probably too late to try.

Language.

I don't recall how many words Rhiannon had at 14 months or how many of them were recognisable by people outside her direct circle. At that age we tended to rely on signs and there were about 50 of them, but they're a different skill. We're at a *stage* at the moment. Phrases are being put together. Rarely more than three words per phrase, but the phrases then get put together.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I was an early talker too (no idea how many words I had at 15 months, though). I'm determinedly unworried about Oisín - if niggling doubts set in that he may not in fact be a child genius, I can always comfort myself with the statistic that boys tend to reach developmental milestones later than girls :-) Funnily enough, I really thought I'd be more het up about this sort of thing than I am. He's him, and I love him, and I find I don't actually care how fast he's developing compared to other kids. That said, I do squee and boast when he learns a new trick - but that's only natural, innit? People don't tend to ask insidious questions about his progress, which also helps.

My sister (who is not noted for her slow wits) said nothing at all for nearly two years. Then one night, while we were on holiday, she suddenly started talking. I've read somewhere that this is a recognised pattern, most commonly found in second children. My mother remembers lying in the dark listening to a stream of random sentences emerging from the cot, many of which seemed to have been stored up at the house of her childminder: "Time to put your coat on, we're going for a walk", "Would you like a sandwich?" and so on.

Hooray for serene bliss! And lots of bouncing in anticipation of your visit!

talking

[(Anonymous)]

Well, Oliver is almost 27 months and has recently started to talk.

Well, not quite true. He's been saying "nuh" (no) "da" (ta) and "nur" (nurse, but not easily distinguishable from no) for ages, but that was as far as it went. He's now started to put sounds together into phrases (even if the sounds themselves aren't really comprehensible). He managed to make some kind of sense when telling Daddy about the bells on Teletubbies (they went round and round and made a big noise).

I too am less worried than I feared I would be. It helps that he is obviously bright and musical and equally obviously understands just about everything I say to him. And he doesn't have hearing problems... while in the hall playing ball he picked up on a quiet comment made by Daddy in the kitchen.

Oliver is a second child. His daddy (now a Physics PhD) was also a second child and didn't say a word till he was two. The comment invariably made at this piece of information is "making up for lost time"...

Christopher, by the way, said his first Actual Word ("ta" - I was so proud) at fourteen months. (Said it solidly for five days, until the moment we arrived at his relatives' house...) By his 18-month check I was saying "well yes, he's got six words for vehicles - for colours - for facial features -" So despite not having started yet, Linnea could still be in the race ;-)

LBs

Julie paradox using too many brackets

Re: talking

[ailbhe]

She has those kinds of words. But not words other people can recognise.