I've just had the NCT session with the breastfeeding counsellor. I'm doing NCT because I'm pregnant with my first biological baby; I'm on my own and I have a 9 year old who's my ex-partner's biological daughter, and she and I did NCT then too - so obviously, I do get that some bits will be less relevant to me. But mostly it's been useful as I've never given birth before, and when we did NCT most of a decade ago I was concentrating more on the 'partner' stuff. Anyway, that's the background.
The counsellor started out by describing how, when a baby is born, it can crawl up its mother to find the breast and latch on for itself. She went on about this at some length. Someone asked if this is something likely to happen with a NHS birth and she said absolutely it was. Then she asked if anyone had questions about establishing breastfeeding, so I asked if she had tips for if you had a less-than-ideal birth and no skin-to-skin. I was expecting tips about getting a baby to latch or whatever.
She said in that case, you could feed the baby expressed milk with syringe, then 'later on' try to 'establish' breastfeeding (but no indication of how). Apparently those were the two options: either your baby crawls up your body as nature intended, or you're onto syringe feeding. I thought this was utterly bonkers so the session didn't start well for me.
After that, virtually every question someone asked about FF or feeding expressed milk, she'd look confused and reply 'well ... you could do that. It's your choice! Whatever choice you make is up to you!' Clearly people were asking for actual advice, and clearly she'd been told she wasn't allowed to insist breastfeeding was the be-all and end-all, but she also had nothing helpful to say about anything else.
At some point she split us into two groups and said she'd teach the partners how breastfeeding should work and then they would teach the mums, and she said since I was on my own she'd teach me. She talked me through it and I asked about positions after a c-section, and she replied 'I can only talk about what's straightforward' then got up and walked off, so I was sitting there on my own while everyone else carried on talking. Roughly 40% of women have sections! It's not a niche thing!
I am fully aware other people in the group found it a bit crap; there was a bit of muttering and we were all pretty obviously clockwatching.
Is it me, or is this really shit?