Yup i like the crossover hold as it really did work. What I didn’t like was that the position is not the most natural for our hands and left my muscles aching after a while, esp since newborns can nurse for a LONG time, naps in between too. So I grit my teeth and hung on. Eventually, I got my aching arms a nursing pillow – life-saver!! Nursing started looking up from there.

Thanks so much for participating in this giveaway AND for sharing your breastfeeding journey too! I’m learning a lot from you guys, and I’m sure LOTS of other moms benefit from the helpful tips and info you all shared too!!

Btw, LittleDreamer the nursing top sponsor has chosen the three winners! The names are out!

Do check out the giveaway blog post yeah!!

(and if you didn’t win it this time round, there’ll be more giveaways coming up REAL soon! =D )

For moms who can’t do it cos of choice or situations, hey, who says only breastfed babies are the only ones loved! We are all mothers who care for our children. No one got the right to be judgmental. If there are such folks around, ignore them!

The crossover hold is fantastic! I also used the football hold very often, especially when I needed to clear blocked ducts in certain ‘tricky’ parts of the breasts. ;p

Communication is two-way. On one hand, I agree that nursing moms should not judge or sound judgemental, because really this is not a competition and it is so futile to do such comparisons. The time and energy can be better spent elsewhere.

On the other hand, non-nursing moms also need not feel defensive when they hear others advocate (no matter how fiercely) breastfeeding or breastmilk. After all, consider the context of their passionate advocation. If it is on blogs or forums or websites that seek to promote breastfeeding, their zeal is well-placed and apt. In the case of this blog entry, clearly Leonny is promoting breastmilk (but not at the detriment of infant formula) and other mummies who have posted comments are just sharing our zeal and breastfeeding experiences for mutual encouragement and edification.

Now, let’s consider the larger societal context. Nursing moms may sound even over-zealous simply because no one spends zillions of dollars advertising for breastmilk; the persuasion/conversion is by word of mouth, one mom at a time. Hence we may feel we need to speak louder, sound more passionate, just to be heard above all the commercials done by infant formula companies and the misconceptions commonly perpetuated about the ‘ills’ of breastfeeding or breastmilk. A louder voice also because it is so much easier to just give up trying to breastfeed, especially given that breastfeeding difficulties on average last for some six weeks after delivery. So we share and cheer louder, in the hope that other mommies will persevere longer.

My sister gave birth last year to my nephew. Due to a whole host of different contributing factors, my nephew couldn’t suckle properly and her milk supply was affected (because the body read it as diminished demand and hence produced less milk). To make matters worse, she had breast infection on one side, which meant she had to let the infection heal fully before she could even try to pump on that side. With one side down, and the other diminished, she used infant formula to supplement. My response to her then was to keep encouraging her, telling her not to give up, assuring her that it was not because she ‘naturally’ had less milk, encouraging her to keep pumping the side that was uninfected and to resume pumping when the infected side had recovered. We lived apart, but kept each other going at night by SMS-ing each other when we both woke up to pump, twice every night. From full infant formula supplementation when my nephew was a couple of weeks old to full breastmilk when my nephew turned six months old, it was one long hard journey for her, but she kept to a simple faith and pumped doggedly away day after day, night after night. I am really proud of her perseverance. My nephew is nearly one year old now, and still on total breastmilk.

I have no qualms defending my sister’s right, as well as any other mommies’ right, to choose whatever type of milk they want to feed their babies with. After all, it’s their children and it is their own or their families’ lifestyle choice.

But it is one thing to say that it is perfectly acceptable to have infant formula as an alternative to breastmilk. It is another thing to say infant formula is the same (and hence by inference, just as good) as breastmilk, which is what a lot of the marketing campaigns by infant formula companies would like mommies to believe. Infant formula, derived from cow’s milk mainly (or soybean for the soy-based formula), is a ‘simulation’ of human milk. In comparison, human milk contains active, ‘live’ micro-organisms and antibodies that, to date, have chemical properties that are not fully understood by scientists and thus they cannot be re-created in infant formula.

Whether breastmilk truly boosts immunity or not, I will leave it to scientific research to back up or prove otherwise since I am not the expert. As with all tests, surveys and research, there will always be exceptions to the majority. I suspect most of us who have chosen to breastfeed did so out of a much more ‘basic’ instinct though. That is simply that breastfeeding is the natural way to feed newborns, and breastmilk is the natural food for them.

Ironically, many of us breastfeeding moms now were fed infant formula as babies. Are we worse off or better off? The jury is still out there. But do we judge our moms? No. We are thankful we live in times when information is more readily available to help us make informed choices, whatever these may be.

I think you misunderstood my point. Breastmilk itself, instrinsically, is 100% compatible with babies. Breastmilk = human milk. The allergy that your friend’s baby has towards her breastmilk is not because of her breastmilk per se, but allergy towards the dairy products. It’s dairy allergy, not breastmilk allergy.

In my family’s case, DS1 doesn’t have any allergy towards dairy, but DS2 does. I am the one, same and only source of breastmilk (also exclusive breastfeeding) for both boys. But because of DS2′s allergy to dairy, he gets moderate eczema from time to time if I increase my milk or cheese intake.

Sorry if I sound like I am nitpicking, but due to a lot of inaccurate myths and misconceptions about breastfeeding and breastmilk, I feel compelled to set the record right here, in case any less informed moms-to-be misunderstand and think that there is really some breastmilk which is not suitable for babies.

Breastmilk is God-created food for babies: how can it not be compatible? Societies past and present, which had or have no access to infant formula, have brought up generations on breastmilk. How can breastmilk per se not be compatible with babies?