Message in a bottle

Well, it's been four days since Aimee last touched the bottle and I'm happy to say that she is breast-feeding with gusto now. It is not all plain sailing, sometimes she protests so much she goes onto fits of hysteria. We now know that she is actually not always that hungry and she needs simply to sleep for one hour, so we papoose her. One hour of close-contact swaying later - blissful suckling. We are also learning that complete peace and quiet is actually a bit annoying to Aimee. She loves the buzz and excitement of new places, new faces, outdoors, cold, warm, bright lights, flashing colours, music very loud. This cacophony actually calms Aimee into a peaceful lull. Amazing!

This morning we attending a breast-feeding clinic. Actually it was more of a mother's social gathering where they chatted about life with a young'un. I felt initially a little self-concious as the only bloke there but it was very friendly. The woman running it was incredibly impressed that Aimee could breast feed now especially after three weeks of bottle. She offered some interesting tips about improving positioning, including an unusual down on all fours version I have never seen before. Surreal, but refreshing to talk about these things with someone who is not a midwife or health visitor (they perhaps unintentionally do make you feel slightly useless).
Anyway, there were dozens of babies of all ages there and all the mums offered very sueful personal experiences and advice about all sorts of things.
I was most impressed with a young toddler (maybe a year old) who was dipping in and out of his mother's breasts like you would snack on a packet of peanuts! At one point, he was standing upright, extending his neck to suckle on his mother who's breast drooped to just the right height for him - all the time, she was chatting quite unperterbed.