Breast Feeding Class: Less Hot Than You Might Think

Demonstrating I am well on my way to full middle-class, suburban husband-hood, I attended a Breast Feeding class last night. There is nothing young, hip, or edgey about learning how to breast feed. I am prefectly willing to allow that a totally cool, with-it hot chick might attend such a class (although I don't recall any there...uh, except my beautiful wife -- phew! that was close), but since my attendence was to learn about it so I could understand and help my wife go through with it, I think this clearly puts me into the mini-van man demographic.

Hell, I have even been talking about getting a mini-van. Mini-vans are so uncool, that they are almost cool. Especially if I could get a brand new one, fully tricked out. Maybe I could put those spinning wheels and some fluorescent under-lights on it. I could really cruise in one of those and have plenty of storage room for strollers and diaper bags. Yeah, bitches!

Anywho, the class was actually kind of interesting, sort of like the Science of the Breast 101. Apparently a breast is a lot like a stalk of broccoli. Seriously, the lecturer brought broccoli as a visual prop. I imagine afterwords she went home and boiled her breast before melting some cheese on top. Mmm.

I learned a newborn baby has a stomach the size of a marble, which grows to the size of ping pong ball over the first few weeks of their life. Again, there were props. Really, the lecturer was like the Carrot Top of lactation consultants.

I also learned TOR. Tickle the lower lip. Open the mouth wide. RAM it in.

Apparently the nurses have asked the lactation people to stop using this memory acronym. I am not sure if they find the ramming of breasts distasteful, or merely the linguistic faux pas of putting an acronym in an acronym, as RAM also stands for Rapid Arm Movement. All I know is breast feeding requires a good latch. I will probably check out Home Depot after work.

Finally I learned we are suppose to breast feed every 2-3 hours for weeks on end and that we should really wait 4 weeks before first trying to introduce a bottle. Yikes, that doesn't sound like much sleep. With two of the little rugrats we have to make sure they feed simultaneously, otherwise the little woman will never do anything else. Even as it is I imagine more often than not she will look like a shark with a couple of remora fish tucked under each arm.

T-Minus 5 weeks to destruction of decadent, lazy-do-nothing lifestyle.