Benjamin sleepingBenjamin was born at St. Joseph’s hospital in Tucson, Arizona. The care we received there was absolutely wonderful. One particular nurse was really fun: she had a very pragmatic approach to parenting infants in general, and nursing in particular. “People try to treat babies as if they’re stupid, but I’ll tell you what: your son isn’t dumb. They say he’ll have nipple confusion if he gets a bottle. Do you honestly think that this baby is going to confuse a plastic bottle with the warmth of his mother? He isn’t stupid.”

She has a particularly fun take on breastfeeding. “Some try to make breastfeeding this tender, bonding event between Mom and her child: they let the little baby snuggle up and go to sleep with the nipple in his mouth. No; not me. Breastfeeding is all business: if that baby goes to sleep before he’s full, he’ll be up again in 30 minutes, but Mom hasn’t slept a wink! And I guarantee he won’t notice that you’re tired. Give that a week and Mom will literally lose her mind.” She continued, “Your objective should be to wear him out completely — he should feed him until he is unconscious and in bliss, with a dribble of milk going down his cheek”

But, how to keep him nursing and not just fooling around? She taught us the countdown technique. As the baby nurses, let him rest for a few seconds to catch his breath, but if he starts to just lay there going to sleep, start a countdown: “5… 4… 3… 2… 1…” and once you make it to one, then comes the tickle hand of torment. This was my favorite part: tormenting my son. She advised me to “Tickle his back: newborns just hate that.” So, we tried this, and it worked like a charm: after just two or three times doing this, with the baby starting to doze off, I would just start in with a low and ominous, “One… Two…” and the baby would suddenly come back to life, sucking for all he was worth. It was hilarious! Even our infant recognized the countdown. So, Benjamin has always been a really good eater, and I give most of the credit to the outstanding help we received from those nurses at St. Joe’s.