Christine C

week 20 (the distractible boo) 134-140 days

looking back it seems that i was only able to successfully nurse boo while laying down in my bed during week 20. also, the room had to be quiet and heaven forbid boo's daddy popped his head in to chat, that would always signal the end of a feeding. suddenly it became clear that boo was a distractible nurser. this seemed a little overwhelming at first, especially when boo would pull away to look at something without unlatching first (ouch). a few times i had to actually coax boo back to the nipple by teasing her with it and making silly faces and sounds. turning on a fan to drown out any distracting noises along with threatening boo's daddy with a frowning of a lifetime if he came even close to the bedroom helped keep boo focused on eating. on a positive note, all this laying around in a quiet environment was really relaxing and i found myself singing to boo and stroking her hair and hands more instead of wrestling with her to try and keep her latched.

kellymom has a great article on the distractible baby and offers the invaluable advice of keeping a finger ready to break suction as soon as baby starts to pull away. she also warns that "less frequent/shorter nursing during this distractible stage can lead to a low milk supply, so do your best to get in a few decent feedings during the day."