The Perils of Night-Nursing
January 28, 2007 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under breastfeeding stories, humor, sleep, toddler nursing
At 2:30 a.m. I stumbled through the dark to my toddler’s bed. I didn’t bother to put my eyeglasses on even though everything appeared quite fuzzy to me without them. I could hear my daughter crying for me and I could vaguely make out her tiny form in the bed. I lay down next to her and rested my head on the pillow. She didn’t turn to me to nurse as she usually would, so I gently pulled her shoulder to roll her body toward me. She still didn’t latch on and that’s when I figured out that somehow she’d flipped around with her feet at the head of the bed. I’d rolled her “shoulder” and ended up trying to nurse her knee!
Well, that must have been a surprise to both of you! Not really a “peril” though! On another subject, I always feel disheartened by articles I read in popular magazines warning against nursing in bed. With your arm over your baby’s head, there is no way to roll over onto your infant. Also, the gentle pressure over the infant’s head has some type of psysiological influence in helping the baby sleep via the warmth and slight pressure. After more than five collective years of nursing, I never had any problem or concern on sharing our bed.
I had a similar incident once when I went to nurse my then 10-month-old daughter. She was sleeping in a futon at the foot of our bed and had scooted herself over her pillow barrier and was half-way on the floor when she woke up. In the dark, I reached for her, found her waist, picked her up to position her to nurse, and was very surprised to find her little legs in my face instead of her head. She was dangling upside down. Oops. My giggle gave her a giggle and it’s one of those late-night feedings I’ll certainly remember forever.