Go NAEYC!

[annettemarie]

I used to be a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, but stopped when I stopped teaching. I just rejoined, and was curious if they had a position on supporting breastfeeding. I found this:

The program supports breastfeeding by

* accepting, storing, and serving expressed human milk for feedings;
* accepting human milk in ready-to-feed sanitary containers labeled with the infant's name and date and storing it in a refrigerator for no longer than 48 hours (or no more than 24 hours if the breast milk was previously frozen) or in a freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below for no longer than three months;
* ensuring that staff gently mix, not shake, the milk before feeding to preserve special infection-fighting and nutritional components in human milk; and
* providing a comfortable place for breastfeeding and coordinating feedings with the infant's mother.

:

The only thing that could be better would be to include older children as well as infants...

[ewp11100]

This is wonderful! Sadly "programs" don't always translate into real life I have worked in several preschools, several very high end (with NAEYC accreditation). No one had any knowledge of breast milk They talked about how OMG xyz child is still nursing at 7 months or how mom's need to "stop disturbing" the baby by coming to nurse at lunch. Always makes me said. Unfortunately I have very worked with infants for very long, I've always been teaching pre-k but when I was in that position I would gently correct these teachers. Of course I'm sure they didn't really like being corrected, so who knows if the info got through.

[elizaMM]

That's great! I'm glad to see that too. I'm especially impressed about the shaking part. While I get the feeling I'm in the minority at my son's childcare center they do have a chair just for me :-)

I did run across my state's (WI) licensing regulations though, and it mentions throwing out bottles of formula AND breastmilk after one offering. Not offering breastmilk twice as kellymom.com says you can (and others, I"m sure). So that's something we need to watch out for and work on.