need a response

[anonymommy]

A mom, trying to be funny, circulated a joke as follows:

HOW TO PREPARE FOR NURSING...

Day 1- Gently rub your nipples with sandpaper.

Day 2- At bedtime, set your alarm clock to go off every two hours. Each time it rings, spend 20 minutes sitting in a rocking chair with your nipples clamped in a pair of chip clips.

And so forth. On and on.

Is there a counterpoint

HOW TO PREPARE FOR FORMULA FEEDING that I could circulate or could you girls write one? LOL I can't think today. In this group of women, that's really the only way to respond. Since she's already done the nursing "joke" then nobody can accuse me of being hostile if it's the same but formula.

[gr8tfulmom]

how about
day 1 - clean all the crevices in your shower/tub with a qtip or toothpick when necessary, this will prepare you for cleaning all those bottles, nipples, and threads that make them go together.

day 2 - repeat day 1, just at a bachelor friends house to get you ready for those bottles that become lost for days under the bed/ couch/ carseats and have dried up gunk in them

day 3 - take out a $5 or $10( I don't know how much F is now a days), light it on fire. This will ready you for the expense of formula -hey, they don't keep it behind the counter w/ the cig's at the grocery for nothin


If I go on I may get snarky - what if you forwarded a punchlist of bm benefits - intellectual, emotional, physical, evidence that can't be made light of? or do you feel comfy getting snarky w these folks? that could be fun

[anonymommy]

You know, I'm OK being kinda snarky if it's researched, but I am so brain dead today I can't function at that level and I really want something up ASAP b/c I found the post so gut level concerning.

Something like day 4 -- go stand at the DMV for 1.5 hours to simulate an extra sick child visit in your child's first year. Repeat on days ___ - ___ . (Source: Average number of sick child visits for formula fed vs. breast fed infants, cite study if possible)

Is that snarky? I'm sure I'll be told I'm telling ff's they are bad mothers. I'm up for suggestions.

[beansavi]

My response would be to say that email is based on complete ignorance and you are (as are many of us) completely insulted-she should think things through better! Man, that really pisses me off!

Pull up the "Brestfeeding Haikus" on this forum and forward some to her! Many joyful and pleasureable experiences!

[Janice in Canada]

There's probably alot of good studies that you could use, here:
http://systems.cs.colorado.edu/~koli...f-formula.html

But you'll still need to use your brain to ffigure it out!

Janice

[Ruthla]

Day 5-set an alarm clock to go off every 3 hours, each time it goes off stand barefoot in the kitchen for 5 minutes while the alarm clock is still going off (to simulate baby crying while you prepare a bottle,) then sit in a rocking chair for 20 minutes holding your arm up at an odd angle, then pour 1/2 cup of spoiled milk on your shoulder (to simulate formula spit up) before going back to bed.

And I'd change day 3 to lighting $20 bills or tossing them into a fireplace

Day 6 Put a 1 gallon bottle of water in your purse and carry it around with you everywhere- this will prepare you for toting all those formula bottles around with you. (or maybe make this day 1 and continue doing this step the entire pregnancy.)

[JamesMama]

Too bad this would be dangerous during pregnancy

Day 7, ask DH to punch you in the breast 4 times each, twice a day for a week to prepare you for engorgement and plugged ducts as your milk comes in but is not emptied.

Day 8, Go to the mall with a doll and a recording of a crying baby. Find the food court, pull a bottle of cold water out of your diaper bag, add the formula. Shake for 2 minutes, then go to every resturant in the food court and ask for a cup of near boiling water to warm your bottle. Stand there for 5 minutes while the bottle warms up (increasing the volume on the recording of the crying baby). This will prepare you for Bottlefeeding in public

Day 9, next time you clean you your fridge put a spoon full of the contentes into a disposable diaper. Put it in a plastic sack and then sit it in the sun for 24 hours, the next day stand over it for 3 minutes. This will prepare you for changing stinky formula diapers.

[KatWrangler]

There is a thread a couple of weeks ago about this whole article. It was in American Baby or Baby Talk. One of those two mags.

Search a couple of pages back and you may be able to find it.

[Momtwice]

I would take a different tack. I would respond to each bit of ignorance with accurate info from http://www.kellymom.com

But if you are going to mock ff, make sure you talk about how bad the bottles smell when they are left around.

[momileigh]

LOL - preparing for formula feeding!

You girls are too much.

I really feel sorry for the person who wrote the original "joke," and I feel even worse for any mom who reads it and gets scared about bfing. And I'm ANGRY about whoever published it, if it really was in a magazine! My search isn't going through, anyone have the link to that discussion?

[Janice in Canada]

There's been several threads on this article from BabyTalk magazine

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ight=sandpaper

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ight=sandpaper

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ight=sandpaper

Janice

[Snowdrift]

I responded on one of the other threads about how as soon-to-be-nursing mom I found it not very funny and somewhat discouraging. AS time has passed I find myself thinking aobut it more and more. For years ther'es been a similar type of "joke" floating around about having kids in general (particularly memorable: "get an octopus and a string bag, put the octopus in the string bag. Now you're ready to dress an infant.") That one never scared me because I've dressed a kid before. I've never nursed before and it is somewhat indimidating, although with my family background less because I've been conditioned to think of nursing as weird or icky and more becuase in my family nursing is one of huge rites of passage into womanhood as much or more so than birth.

The more I think about it the more I think this joke is not only not funny but downright dangerous. Now we can't demand that people not say things, but I for one would respond pretty vehemently if a friend sent this to me. I personally could really use a step by step refutation of this (I already know some of them, but things like nipples changing shape in scary ways weirds me right out, and I've never come across anything about this, other than a vague memory of my mom's being really strange looking).

[Emilie]

is there a lll in your area? go get womanly art of bfing. it saved my life those first days.

emilie

[Snowdrift]

Originally Posted by Emilie

is there a lll in your area? go get womanly art of bfing. it saved my life those first days.

emilie

Not to hijack too much, but I'm going to first meeting on Wednesday! I'm so excited and a little intimidated, and a little scared of being the the only one there without a baby. (Still missing the babe I miscarried...even though I'm pg, babies still make me a little sad. Hoping it will get better when my arms aren't so empty in a few months.) Also got a used copy of womanly art this past weekend at a secondhand shop. Will read it next weekend.

I'm sure this destructive e-mail message can be counteracted, but I doubt all women who come across it have such easy access to the resource to counteract it. If it weirded me out, it's got to be discouraging to women who didn't grow up with nursing...these days that's a lot of women.

[Momtwice]

Originally Posted by tie-dyed

Not to hijack too much, but I'm going to first meeting on Wednesday! I'm so excited and a little intimidated, and a little scared of being the the only one there without a baby. (Still missing the babe I miscarried...even though I'm pg, babies still make me a little sad. Hoping it will get better when my arms aren't so empty in a few months.)

I'm sorry about your loss.

You may or may not be the only one without a babe in arms...there are often moms who are pregnant...in fact nothing makes us LLL types happier than a mom getting good info BEFORE the birth! Hope you love it!

[NYCVeg]

I would also take a different approach and circulate ProMom's 101 Reasons to BF. It's catchy, but REALLY well-supported with research.

http://www.promom.org/101/

[mykidsrock]

nak
wow, these ff jokes are great!
I ff my 2nd child and i soooo know how much work it is!!

i think a joke about pacification would be great too! i can't tell you how many times we went on family trips and my son would scream all night in the hotel room. i had to miss out on my sleep and pace around the room with him ALL night!! you don't know how badly I wished I could just stick my boob in his mouth to shut him up!!

oh, and about the money . .ds was on hypoallergenic formula, we spent sooo much! each can was $25 and he went through 2 1/2 cans per week!! not to mention the expensive disposable playtex bottle liners (i did NOT want to wash bottles in addition to nipples ans stuff)

actually, i thought the original joke was funny. having a 3 week old, my nips still hurt a bit so the nipple clamp thing was funny to me. however i DO see the disservice it can be to moms who have never bf. i think it depends on the audience, we who bf can have a sense of humor about it, but the magazine that printed the article needs to realize that bfing moms weren't the only ones who saw it!

[Overtheriver]

I know a woman who was the oldest child in a large family of formula fed babies- the foul stink of a formula fed sibling's diapers permeated her entire childhood and turned her off to children for her life (her words) - she is unmarried and childless at 50.

I don't think the bacterial imbalance in the gut of a formula fed baby is a small potatoes issue.

Also- don't forget spit up stains.

[anonymommy]

Thanks. I made it through my first Trust Birth meeting and am going to print out this thread and tackle circulating SOMETHING. Like many of you, I am mildly amused by some of the line items in the "joke" but on the whole I find it destructive.

[Gidget]

I didnt like it much myself. I personally would have found something more general funnier. Like "How to prepare for parenthood". My first on that list would be "Buy a goat and let it have free reign of your house". That is sure how I feel when my kids break stuff and eat like a famine is coming.