The Leaky Boob

According to "What To Expect the First Year," there are, humorously enough, 5 types of breastfeeders. Even funnier are their descriptions...

The Barracuda: Your baby's nursing style is barracuda-like if he latches onto the breast tenaciously and suckles for 10-20 minutes. A barracuda doesn't dawdle--feeding time is no-nonsense for him. Occasionally, a barracuda's suck is so vigorous that it actually hurts at first. If your nipples fall victim to your baraccuda's strong suck, don't worry--they'll toughen up quickly [you hope] as they acclimate to nursing with the sharks.

The Excited Ineffective: If your baby becomes so wound up with excitement when presented with a breast [does this also apply to husbands??] that he often loses grasp of it--and then screams and cries in frustration--it's likely you have an Excited Ineffective on your hands. Mothers of this type of nurser have to practice extra patience; you'll need to get your baby nice and calm before putting him back on the job. Usually excited ineffectives become less excited and more effective as they get the hang of nursing, at which point they'll be able to hold on to the prize without incident.

The Procrastinator: Procrastinators do just that--procrastinate. These slowpoke babies show no particular interest or ability in sucking until the milk comes in. Forcing a procrastinator to feed before he is ready will do no good (as you'll find out later in life when you try to force homework). Instead, waiting it out seems to be the best bet; procrastinators tend to get down to the business of nursing when they're good and ready.

The Gourmet: If your baby likes to play with your nipple, mouth it, taste a little milk, savor each mouthful of milk as though composing a review for Zagat's, he is likely a gourmet. As far as the gourmet is concerned, breast milk is not fast food. Try to rush gourmets through their meals and they'll become thoroughly furious--so let them take their time enjoying the feeding experience.

The Rester: Resters like to nurse for a few minutes and then rest a few minutes. Some even refer the nip-and-nap approach: nurse for 15 minutes, fall asleep for 15 minutes, then wake to continue feeding. Nursing this type of baby will obviously take time and it will take patience, but hurrying a rester through his courses, like hurrying a gourmet, will do no good as they stubbornly feed on their own terms.

Wyatt, who has fallen into all of these categories at some point, is most consistently an Excited Ineffective. It's pretty funny to watch him as he closely resembles Dinky with a rag toy in his mouth. Instead he's an overly excited baby shaking his head back and forth with his mouth open over a nip that is literally right in front of his face but his extreme excitement prevents his ability to latch on until eventually he yells out once or twice and then finally settles his mouth over it.


I'm curious as to if other nursing mothers have experienced what I would politely call a surge of milk production in their breasts. Factoring engorgement out of the equation, what I'm referring to is having so much milk that the baby chokes and coughs during the feeding from what I can only assume is milk forcefully spraying down his throat or simply filling his mouth faster than he can swallow. My absolute favorite is when I'm trying to guide the nip into my little Excited Ineffective's mouth and it shoots a stream of milk over my head. You can bet your leaky boob that I'm really looking forward to that happening during a public feeding.

Most recently, Wyatt has been using me as a pacifier. Sometimes, even when he isn't hungry--sometimes right after he's eaten--he will start rooting around and when I put him on the boob he eats for about a minute and then promptly falls asleep. He has even gone so far as to root around on the hubs just to get him to hand him over to me, which I have to admit is pretty cute and secretly--okay, not so secretly--I love it. But I must find a strategy to differentiate because in order to qualify as his sole provider of meals as well as his binky, that means I have to live life topless, and let's face it, I don't live on Paradise Beach, nor do I want to.