Baby's distracted nursing

Nursing is nothing like it used to be a couple of months ago. In this short amount of time, little Jack has opened his eyes wide to the rest of the world and there is no going back.  I remember the first time he paused while nursing to look up and smirk at me. It was such a magical moment. Now there are times when I am engorged, only have 15 minutes left on my lunch break, and I just want to yell “get on with it!”

For one thing, he loves to look at the cats. We have three cats. Leia has the unfortunate history of abuse in her distant past that has resulted in an uncanny ability for her to remain within close proximity, but still an inch out of reach of his broad grasp.  Herbie is Jack’s best friend.  It is amazing his tolerance for hair pulling as Jack tries to figure out how to physically interact with him.  Trudy likes to try to get on my lap while Jack is there, and seemingly forgets (every time!) that there will be hair pulling, so she ends up leaving as quickly as she showed up.  All three of the cats are extremely focused on people, so no matter what, when I am on the couch, they are circling around the room and never far from his view, so he is constantly looking in all directions rather than nursing.

Jack makes a habit of taking 2-3 sucks and pulling off.  He wants to make sure that I know he is there to nurse, (so that I don’t put it away), but he won’t let that stop him from playing with my blouse or my hair.

There is no more privacy with nursing.  If I place a nursing blanket over my shoulder when we are in public, he promptly removes it by wriggling and reaching and grabbing until it has fallen.  What’s more, he loves to make (loud) raspberry noises as if to announce, “I am here! Let’s play!”

When all is said and done, however, once he has nursed, even in his new, utterly unfocused way, he finishes up by looking up at me and smiling and cooing. This makes whatever challenges I’ve experienced completely worthwhile.