- While looking at pictures in a farm book, you point out the picture of the cow “breastfeeding” her baby.
- Your stuffed animals are lined up on your bedroom floor so you can teach them how to “hand express.”
- The Breastfeeding Atlas has been your bedtime storybook at least a few times.
- Your friend is a bit horrified to learn that the knitted “apples” she is playing with on the living room table are not apples.
- You know the meaning of words like “engorgement,” “mastitis,” “meconium,” and “plugged duct.”
- One of the first things you notice about your new friend is that he has a tongue tie.
- Your mom is on the phone with an upset client and you know it’s a great time to turn on the television.
- People always have strange reactions when they ask you about your mom’s career. What is wrong with the fact that she helps mommas with “leaking nipples?”
- You are out in public, you notice breastfeeding parents, and it makes you smile.
- It makes no sense to you why anyone would feel uncomfortable breastfeeding their baby. That’s how babies are fed isn’t it?
- While feeding your dolls, you either pull up your shirt or make sure to point out there is breastmilk in the bottle.
- Your dad puts something made by Nestlé in the cart at the grocery store, and you immediately notice. You don’t even ask before getting it out and putting it back on the shelf.
- A baby scale plays a key role in your science fair project.
- The large supply of needleless syringes and examination gloves in your home becomes useful when you can’t find the water balloons and squirt guns.
- In a picture of your family you drew for preschool, you remembered the breasts, but not the hands.
Or when a mom calls your house for help and your mom is in the bathroom and you ask if the caller has sore nipples or if it hurts when the baby latches on.
You walk out of Food Lion because you know what’ coming when some guy in line asks the clerk if bok choy is the right cabbage to get for his wife who is engorged . . . and your mother is in line in front of him.
Delicious! And so true! Thanks for writing this, I’ll share on the GOLD Lactation FB page.
When your teacher has a baby and brings it to class, and you, at 5, give the rest of the kindergarten a lecture on how twiddling gets “more milkies out, duh!” Yeah, he was still nursing in kindergarten. Happily, that teacher went on to nurse that baby until kindergarten, too!