Feeding in the 'football hold' underarm nursing position

[BabiesEverywhere]

I was introduced to a mum who was worried about feeding in this one position all the time. A mutual friend knew I had nursed my child in that position and asked me to have a chat with her.

She had trouble with the cradle hold with last baby and weaned to formula at the three month mark as the cradle hold was to painful.

Roll on to her new baby, she has been told by her health visitor that she can not continue to nurse her baby this way as the breast will not be emptied properly in the underarm hold.

Which I am assuming is rubbish, as breasts are never completely empty and I have fed my 22 month old pretty much exclusively in that position (except in bed)with no problems.

Just checking there is no other reason why you need to vary nursing position if you found one that works for you and your baby ?

My SIL BF her twins using the football hold.
It worked really successfully, with no problems.

I fed ds like this as he was prem and I had a cs, so cradle hold was difficult. No problems at all until he got too big for it to work for us. Think the hv is probably talking rubbish.

standard printed hv tosh that you have to change position or you won't empty your breasts - a good squish around to make sure there are no harder areas, or gentle pressure on those areas whilst feeding works fine. mond you - i do remember a hv trying to persuade me that i had to develop some some of over-the-shoulder thing for the smae reason - it all sounded very complicated so i did what worked for me and dcs.

Bollocks. She can feed how she likes. Give her a couple of months and she'll be making dinner and answering the door and painting her nails while feeding

Utter tosh. Bloody HV!

oh - i want another baby now!
it's the only time that multitasking is at all appealing!

Multitasking as in feeding baby and ... eating chocolates, or feeding baby and ... flicking channles, or feeding baby and .... Mumsnetting ....

Wish I had BFing as an excuse for that typo

It was the only position I could ever get a good latch in. Fed my DD for 18 months using the rugby ball position alone. Made feeding outside the home a bit tricky, but other than that, it was the only way I was ever going to breastfeed.

right - how much is a vasectomy reversal?

Feeding underarm is great. I hated it because it felt abnormal and hard to feed outside the home.... until I managed the cradle hold (about 6 months) and realised that underarm you can have a whole tray of dinner on your lap and eat it quite comfortably. And the baby only gets minimal gravy spilt on it.

They do eventually get big and strong enough to launch themselves headfirst off the sofa but by that time they'll be able to latch on any which way without your assistance.

mrsgboring, you're right there. These days I am woken by DS (11 months) kneeling on my tummy and helping himself to a morning feed. He's very adept at burrowing his way through various garments to get to the nearest boob. DP and I can hardly believe it's the same baby we sat up through the night with shedding buckets of tears trying to get him to latch on!

Sidetracking, I feed DS in a sort of sideways rugby ball hold while pumping from the other side so he doesn't get bashed. The other day I was wriggling him into position and he decided he didn't want to wait - was on his tummy, spread out sort of parallel to the headboard and decided to lift himself up on his arms and latch himself on over the top. Bless! (He's 5mo)

That's absolute rubbish Rugby ball hold is perfect for women who've got small babies, have big breasts Or after c-sections. I always feed like that for the first 6 weeks or so.