The Boob Group
10 Ways to Support Breastfeeding Moms

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Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.

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SUNNY GAULT: Breastfeeding is a commitment and it can be challenging at times. And sometimes the smallest gestures of kindness or a complimentary word can really help build up a breastfeeding mom's confidence and keep her nursing for as long as possible. What can you do to support the breastfeeding mom in your life? We've got some great ideas for partners, grandparents and friends. We're The Boob Group.

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SUNNY GAULT: Welcome to The Boob Group. We're here to support all moms wanting to provide breast milk to their babies and I'm Sunny Gault. I am co-hosting the show for today with a few other mammas that you're going to meet in just a second. If you haven't yet, we encourage you to download the New Mommy Media network app. It gives you easy access to all of the podcasts that we produce within the New Mommy Media Shows that include The Boob Group.

We also have great programming for pregnant moms, moms who have just their babies, parents of twins, lots of good stuffs there. And if you download The New Mommy Media Network app you could get access to all of the podcasts and brand new episodes are uploaded as soon they are available. Another option for you is too subscribe to our podcasts through iTunes and you can get the latest episodes downloaded to your mobile device automatically that way. If you do happen to be on iTunes we do ask that you leave us a review. It really does help us make the show as good as it possibly can be. We've had some format changes recently and so we really like just to know what you think and it also helps other parents find our show. The more input you people give on the show that's how people find them in iTunes. iTunes recommends shows based on comments and all the feedback the you leave for us. Please check that out and leave us a review. So let's meet the mammas that are joining the conversation today as we talk about ways to support a breastfeeding mom. Shannon let's start with you, tell us a little bit about yourself and your family.

SHANNON O’HARA: Hi my name is Shannon. I am a stay-at-home mother, I have two kids Gabriella is two and Emerson is seven months. I'm also a photographer so I spend a lot of time juggling, picking crackers out of the car seats in my vehicle and rushing off to photoshoots.

SUNNY GAULT: And who are you breastfeeding now?

SHANNON O’HARA: I am breastfeeding Emerson.

SUNNY GAULT: Awesome. Okay and Jennifer tell us something about yourself.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: Hi I'm Jennifer Weedon Palazzo. I am an actor turned writer, producer of comedy videos for Moms. I'm the mamma of two, my oldest is a five-year-old boy whom I breastfed till he was almost two and I'm currently nursing an eight months old girl.

SUNNY GAULT: And you are the mastermind behind MomCave TV which is what you are talking about so you guys make sure you check it out especially if you just need a quick little video to just lift you up because their videos are so funny. Check them out on YouTube and might be a good thing to do while your breastfeeding. If you just need a little bit of a break. Just saying.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: We have a whole web series about awkward moments in nursing called Double OJ so check that out.

SHANNON O’HARA: Is there's one way it's like I dropped the phone on my babies head and then hope they didn't wake up.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: I'm sure a lot of us have done that.

SUNNY GAULT: Yes, I love it. Okay, I'm Sunny. I'll be kind of moderating our conversation today. I have four kids of my own. My oldest is five, a boy. I have a three-year-old boy and then I have twin girls who are about two and a half. I am currently breastfeeding my two and a half year old girls.
They are my breastfeeding success story in my own mind. I wasn't able to do everything I wanted to do with my boys I did breastfeed them but not for as long as I would have liked and it's amazing I say this to people and they look at me like I'm crazy. I actually personally found it easier to breastfeed twins than I did singleton and I think that had a lot to do with just supply and demand. They were constantly on the boob and so my supply never dipped down.

Anyways I love breastfeeding and I'm excited to bring this episode to you guys today because I think we can all learn something about how to support a breastfeeding mom. This is one of those great episodes that someone says, "How can I help?" You can say, "Well first of all you can to these podcasts and it'll give you every idea you ever needed to know about how you can help me out." Hopefully this is a good resource for all the breastfeeding mammas that have on their back cock it out there. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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SUNNY GAULT: Alright before we start into today’s episode and provide you guys with some great tips on how to help breastfeeding moms. There is a news headline that I want to talk about. I actually found this on Yahoo just yesterday. I was looking for articles and the headline for this is "Why No One Can Stop Talking About This Woman Breastfeeding at a Wedding?" I will post the link to our Facebook page so you guys could check it out but there is a mother and apparently, it's an Australian Mom. And she uploaded a photo to Instagram of her breastfeeding her son and it's gone viral. In the photo she is going for a sip of water and is at a black-tie wedding and it says here she's not the only one having her drink so was her little boy Jonas. She has this beautiful green dress on, she's dress to the night, she's having a sip of water and she's breastfeeding her baby and her baby's looking up at her. It's really kind of nice. It kind of goes along with the #normalize breastfeeding.

Listen we are going to be on positions and places where we going to have to breastfeed our baby. Our babies don't care for wearing a floor-length dress, our babies needs to eat where our babies need to eat. And therefore I think she put on here maybe as part of what she wrote on Instagram was "Just me and my baby having a drink, got to do what you got to do, wedding or not." #normalize breastfeeding. Her little boy just solve the full photo because it was cropped there for a second. He's like in this cute little suit and shoes. It's awesome! Ladies, what do you think about this? As posting photos of us just doing everyday things. What do you think? Jennifer?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: I love it. I went to a wedding a couple of months after my daughter was born and I tried on every dress on my closet and it had to have two criteria. It had to fit obviously and it had to have boob access. It's really hard to find a dress with boob access so she did that. I have a one-shoulder dress so I could only nurse from one side at that wedding. I think it's awesome because babies are such a part on our lives and our families in events like weddings and feeding your babies is the most normal beautiful thing that you can do. Why go to the bathroom and hideaway from the wedding when she's just doing like a family thing at the wedding? I love it.

SUNNY GAULT: Exactly! Shannon as a photographer obviously this is just a quick photoshoot grabbed with her cell phone or whatever. But what do you think of the photo?

SHANNON O’HARA: I think it's great. It resonates with me especially because there have been shoots when Gabriella was younger. My husband’s in the military so if he was away or anything like that on a weekend I would strap her to my back in the tula and I remember one shoot where she was with me and I was about five months pregnant with Emerson and I have to pause to shoot and just say "Hey, she's hungry I got to nurse her." You got to do what you got to do. Totally understand that. I think it goes very far to normalize it.

SUNNY GAULT: Absolutely, even if you're on a photoshoot. Babies still need to eat, right? It's a nice photo. She looks fantastic. If you can look fantastic, I don't always look fantastic when I'm breastfeeding my baby. So I give her a lot of props. Or just the beauty of how she was doing this and able to compose herself and keep it all together cause especially when I have twins coming at me at both angles. It's something out of National Geographic so give her lots of props. Anyway, we'll go ahead and we'll post this to our Facebook page so you guys can check it out.

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SUNNY GAULT: Alright so today we're talking about how to support a breastfeeding mom? What can you do? Whether you are her partner, you are her parent, in-laws, or you're her best friend or just an acquaintance. What can we do to help each other out? So let's kind of go through this list.
The first half that we're going to talk about before our commercial break is to kind of go through what the partner can do. I have some ideas here I'll kind of mention them and ladies if you want to chime in and kind of give your two cents on this. The first point that I wanted to bring up is the partner can learn about breastfeeding and that can happen in a couple of different ways.

Obviously, they can learn about it before the baby arrives so that's kind of being proactive in the whole learning about breastfeeding. The other thing is even after the baby is born, whatever happened you weren't able to do it before the baby was born. I still think there are things you could do afterward. Jennifer, what do you think? Learning about breastfeeding, do you think that's helpful?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: I think it will be completely helpful. I wish there was like a manual for husbands or partners about learning breastfeeding like for them because I feel if they can't relate so much at reading what we're reading. If there are something good specifically geared toward them. If you could find articles that you thought would be in small bites but they could take that and explain it and give them that. That would be awesome.

SUNNY GAULT: Exactly. Shannon?

SHANNON O’HARA: I agree with that. I think that learning ahead of time is so important because it helps set the stage for what the mamma's going to be going through. How she's going to be feeling? How you can encourage her when she does not feel like breastfeeding? I really, really think that preparation is key.

SUNNY GAULT: You know what I like about this? Is that I think it would facilitate more conversation between the partners about what they are about to undergo together because breastfeeding is even though the mammas is doing it, it's still very much a joint-venture. It really does take support from your significant other to really get through it because there are going to be some challenging times. I know from my own personal experience, I did a breastfeeding class. It was just like a couple hours while I was pregnant on my third trimester. And it was good to go to the class but I have like a gazillion questions afterwards and I went by myself. And in hindsight I really would have liked to have brought my husband to it because I could have said then "I don't understand what this is about? Do you have any idea?" And just having that kind of dialogue I think it would have been really helpful because later on if I have the same question maybe he could have remembered, "Oh yeah remember when we did that class."
Learning about breastfeeding and just kind of giving a heads-up on what's involved especially if it's your first baby, I think it can definitely help.
The next point is discuss your breastfeeding goals with your partner. That just goes back to be part of the process. Shannon, what do you think about this?

SHANNON O’HARA: I agree with that as well. I was very vocal to say that, "Hey, I want to nurse Brie until she's at least one year old anything after that is gravy. So when I was feeling discouraged or I just didn't want to do it, setting the stage for us and having my husband educate himself on what was entailed in breastfeeding? What I might be feeling? Really helped him encourage me so that if I didn't want to nurse right then he could say, "You know what? It's still nursing if you pump a bottle and they're still getting the good milk." I think that's a great point.

SUNNY GAULT: And Jennifer, did you guys talk about breastfeeding goals?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: Not at all. When you’re having your first kid there's so many things and you're so overwhelmed. It didn't even occur to us to talk about the breastfeeding goals beforehand. It was just like, "Yeah, that's how I'm going to feed the kid." Once the baby came I found that sometimes we should have talked about it because we had very different ideas about how long to breastfeed or how to do it? Now with our second we're more in tuned but it would have helped to have that conversation beforehand.

SUNNY GAULT: The third point is tell her she's doing great. I love this positive affirmation and you hear this all the time but even if you have more than one child. Every child you have breastfeed is a little bit differently or may have more challenges or less challenges. Every experience is just different, right? So and a lot of times I think because it's so individual towards the baby that we question a lot. We're not lactation consultants; we don't really know exactly what's happening. We may have been to some classes but for the most part I think it's just natural for us to question. Especially when things start to go wrong or we perceive things not going the way we intended. So that positive affirmation sometimes is helpful. Shannon, was positive affirmation was that important to you and does that continue to be important towards your breastfeeding?

SHANNON O’HARA: It's so instrumental. What people say when you're pregnant with your second is "Oh the next baby is going to be so different." I don't know if other people did this but I was kind of like, "It's not going to be that different." But it actually turnout that Gabriella my first would nurse for forty-five minutes every two or three hours on the clock and Emerson came along he would nurse for maybe ten minutes and he'd be full that was it. He was very efficient with the breast. So I think that when I had him I was very questionable like, "Is he getting enough milk?" He was ten pounds at birth so it's a big thing like "How I'm going to maintain this beast?" Having that feedback and having John having educated himself really helped confirm that I was doing the right thing and that I just needed to keep going.

SUNNY GAULT: And Jennifer, the positive comments helped you?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: It helps so much, especially if your partner has an appreciation that you're feeding. Your body is making the milk to feed the child that belongs to both of you. That you’re doing this thing that's so good for the child. It just makes you feel good if they appreciate that.

SUNNY GAULT: I know the other day my husband made some sort of comment. My husband, I don't want to make a bad picture of him. I don't get a lot of compliments; we're just really busy that it's tough. We got a lot of little kids we're lucky if we can give each other a quick kiss. It's tough to think outside the box and think about compliments and stuff like that. When you're just constantly busy and frazzled with your kids.
I remember the other day he did say something about "You're just a really good mom" or something like that and my heart just melted. I know that's not specific to breastfeeding. It was one of those things that I do for my babies because it's so important to me. Part of that what I do as a mom, the things that are important to me and what I think helps my kid. Sometimes it's kind of easy to overlook it because we get used to. Sometimes I wonder like he sees me all the time like nursing my twins. Sometimes I'm wondering does he look over and think, "Oh my gosh, her shirts unbuttoned again." I don't see it from that perspective; I'm just nursing my baby.

SHANNON O’HARA: I totally understand that, I have the same feeling sometimes when Emerson is on me. I'm just like, "Again, we're doing this again?"

SUNNY GAULT: And does your significant another look at that and be like, "Oh you know that used to be mine." You know what I mean? So it's nice to hear those compliments because it reassures us that they are appreciative of us doing this.

SHANNON O’HARA: It's a lot of work and it saves money that is the biggest thing. When my husband is like, "You’re going to nurse him here?" I'm like look we could have stopped at the store and spent fifteen dollars on formula but this is free, I've already made the food like why not give it to him?

SUNNY GAULT: I love that. For all the mammas out there those have husbands that are really watching the wallet. Bring up the money factor. There you go.The next point is give the mammas some break especially during those nighttime feeding. And I think there are lot of ways to support mom by just helping, to get her something like a drink of water or I mean keep in mind if she's breastfeeding her hands are tied. She's doing a bunch of other things, it's tough to do those extra little things. Honestly when we're so focused on our baby we're forgetting to take care of ourselves a lot. We're kind of relying in a way on our significant others to do that. How important are breaks to you Shannon?

SHANNON O’HARA: They are so instrumental. A big part of my life. One of the things that I tend to forget is that I need a break. So with Gabriella I was a first time mom and was breastfeeding and I have all the support all time because I was very vocal about asking about it. And second time around with Emerson I was like, "I got this" I'm vacuuming the floor, I'm holding the baby on the boob. I don't need any help. Sometimes my husband just had to be like, "You're about to meltdown, can you just please have a sit over here? I'm going to bring you some water, put your feet up. Relax and nurse him. You don't have to do the dishes while you hold the baby at the breast." It's not that serious. So I think it's really important.

SUNNY GAULT: And Jennifer go ahead.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: So everything you just said. It's so hard especially if you have a baby that nurses a lot. Which both of mine did, like every hour? It's so hard to accomplish anything and then you start to feel guilty because the dishes are piled up or you can't make dinner and also when the baby wants to eat on unpredictable times. So it's not like that you can plan, "Okay I'm going to make the dinner then feed the baby." If the baby starts crying in the middle of making of the dinner, you got to feed the baby. If the partner can just jump in there and be like, "Oh, I can finish this" that's a huge help otherwise you just feel like you can never get anything done.

SHANNON O’HARA: It's a huge privilege to have a partner that's able to cook and like jump in there and is excited to do so. If you have that, definitely take advantage of it.

SUNNY GAULT: And our last point for the partners out there is to find her support if she needs it. Now support can come in a bunch of different ways. The thing that I thought of when writing this out is if a mom you know again we are so engrossed in our babies and a lot of times we just had the baby fairly recently. Our lives are kind of totally changed within a short amount of time and if you are having some breastfeeding issues it may not be the smartest time to then seek out support. Do I have a board-certified lactation consultant in my community? Is it part of my medical group? If I have the goal like we talked about earlier, the goal to continue to breastfeed as long as possible. Who is my support team with that? And to help implement that team so that could mean in my opinion that could mean experts so we talked about lactation consultants or educators or peer counselors or somebody like that that can help you with any breastfeeding problem that you have. The other side of it is just a mental support, which could be from other breastfeeding moms or that could be definitely from your partner or from other friends in other ways. What about support? Shannon, how important do you think that is?

SHANNON O’HARA: Support is one of the most important things in breastfeeding because it can get very grueling and very exhausting to be there nursing your child constantly. So I think that you have to be specific about building your team. Whether you have a lactation consultant or your partners is very supportive. I always like to do a little bit of overkill when I need some support. I call it building my tribe, my family whether or not it's your actual family or women in your neighborhood that have kids or have gone through what you are dealing with right at that moment. I think it's very crucial and it's critical to being able to achieve the goals that you want to do with your child while you're nursing them.

SUNNY GAULT: Sometimes it's just having those resources on speed dial almost for your partner because again we got so caught up in what we're doing. We may feel a little bit guilty; about I can't reach out to anyone because I should be able to handle it. I should be able to figure this out. I already have one baby and breastfed one baby. I should know what's happening now and we have a tendency to try to manage it ourselves as oppose to reaching out and I think it would be really helpful for a partner to step-in and be like, "Hey, I really think that this would really help" or even just going out and reaching out to the friends, "Hey, can you give her a call? Can you do this? Can you do that?" Because a lot of times we don't do it for ourselves.

SHANNON O’HARA: It's so important because if the partner can't take the impetus so that the breastfeeding mom doesn't feel embarrassed or ashamed but there's just like this feeling of like I should know how to do this. So they could only alleviate that by like taking down the wall of the first ask. Approaching the person.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: I think it's important in moms, I'm kind of admonish you here to be receptive to this because if you're anything like me and you're stubborn and maybe a little bit hardheaded even. You'll be just like, "No, I don't need help. I got this."
So when your partner and your support that you've built up and that you've make sure to educate this person that is going to be a help to you says something like, "Hey you know maybe call the lactation consultant, maybe call your friend that breastfeed all five of her kids and ask her how she dealt with this particular issue whatever you are dealing with you kind of have to humble yourself and just be like, "Oh yeah you know what I should call." and not be like, "No, I got this. This is not that hard. Millions of women have done this." and take the advice from your support person.

SUNNY GAULT: Good advice ladies. So we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to learn how grandparents and friends can help support a breastfeeding mom. We'll be right back.

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SUNNY GAULT: Welcome back. Today we're talking about how to support a breastfeeding mom and we have outlined the role that partners have in this and how they can support breastfeeding moms. I'm sure there are other things we could add to the list. We gave you guys a quick summary of the things without that were most important. But what about people that might be a little bit more removed from the situation. So we're talking about your parents, you’re talking about maybe in-laws, your friends, things of that sort. So the first thing I think we can all agree with this on our list here. Trust her instincts so when we say her we are talking about the breastfeeding mom. Trust the breastfeeding moms instincts this could include when she should feed her baby, how she should feed her baby. There is something to mother's instincts. Shannon would you agree with that?

SHANNON O’HARA: Absolutely! We have these instincts as women, as mothers for a reason and if we pay attention to the messages in society were like, "Oh, I'm going to doubt this or I'm not going to follow this recommendation that I'm feeling is natural to me and my child." Women have a tendency to ignore those or second guess themselves. And I'm just going to go ahead and say don't do that and for the support people who are helping the mom when she is voicing something that she feels is right or something that she needs to do. I think that you need to step-away and put aside what you think is best and support her and what she needs to do to care for her child because that's the most important thing.

SUNNY GAULT: I love that you are talking about encouragement a little bit because if a breastfeeding mom says, "I think I need to do this." We may be a little wavy on our stance on that but someone say, "You know what I think you know what's best for your baby."

SHANNON O’HARA: Just reinforcing. Helping her feel confident in what she's doing. Sometimes it may require that the in-laws or even the breastfeeding mother's mom or whomever that has had their kids and nurse them to put aside what they know and their ego and what they think is best and to really highlight her and put her in the forefront and help her do what she needs to do for her kids.

SUNNY GAULT: Jennifer did you ever have anyone question your instincts when you were breastfeeding?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: Well of course. The mother's in-law and the moms of the breastfeeding mom they've done this before. They're coming from a place of wanting to help, they see that you are overwhelmed into whatever and they want to give their advice it's like "While I did this and it worked." And first of all as the breastfeeding mom, you don't want to be like you did that twenty-five or thirty years ago.

SHANNON O’HARA: My husband actually said that to his mom and it did not go over well.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: Don't do that. If you can just remember that they are really trying to help and if they can just remember to phrase it as "This worked for me but you do what you need to do."

SUNNY GAULT: Exactly. Okay, our next point is to encourage mom to feel comfortable nursing in front of you. I love this point, I think it's huge because even if we feel comfortable let's say even in our own homes. I know that I have a tendency to immediately think that anyone else coming inside of my house could have a problem with it. I guess I have a tendency to dwell on the negative for a little bit like they might have a problem so I really need to find a cover, I need to do this or whatever cause when I'm in my own house I just usually let it flow. If I got two babies coming at me and both are taking a boob there's no way to be nonchalant about breastfeeding if it's just going to happen. But I always get a little bit nervous and I think this is kind of been a hindrance for me to get outside the house more and to go on play-dates and stuff cause you know now were going on two and a half years of breastfeeding and I don't know how other people are going to react. It's not that I'm all, I have to think about what's best for my baby like I understand that. But I don't like awkwardness, I don't like confrontation, I want everyone to be happy and get along. I would really appreciate if someone said to me "Listen, if you need to breastfeed or whatever. I'm totally cool with that." Even if that's how they felt but didn't say, I wish they would say it.

SHANNON O’HARA: My mother-in-law was really good about that. Prior to having Brie, she had never seen my boobs. I don't know how it's done at your house but that's how we did it with our family. When Brie was born I needed to nurse her and my mother-in-law was like, "Look, I've seen them before I've seen boobs, do what you going to do to feed your baby." This is common with second-time moms who have three, four kids. They just kind of get into a rhythm and anybody who is uncomfortable just maybe needs to step out. We were on vacation in Jamaica last week and Emerson is really aggressive when he wants to nurse, he's pulling at me and is very obvious to everyone else that hey there's going to be a boob presenting itself real soon. So if you're not comfortable with that then you should probably excuse yourself. When my father-in-law is in the room and it's convenient for me to go away to a quiet place and I'll do that mainly because Emerson is older now and so he's distracted at the breast so he'll turn away and look at anything else and leave my boob just hanging out with milk squirting out of it. That makes me uncomfortable. If I can move then I will move, if not then I just kind of say, "Hey, if this is not your jam then you might want to step away now.

SUNNY GAULT: It's so funny you mentioned, your baby popping off and just kind of staring into no man's land. I feel like my twins are doing that now and it's really annoying to me. And I find myself saying to them "Listen, I'm not just going to be here naked. So either you're going to nurse or I'm pulling it up." Then the moment I try to pull up my shirt or my bra or whatever they like "nurse, nurse" and I'm like, "Listen you have to make a choice." I'm like talk to them like an adult. You need to make smart decisions.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: Prioritize your needs right now.

SUNNY GAULT: I don't like to just be naked even I know it's just my top, it's not like I take off my buttons but like I don't want to just be out there. I have older boy, I have a five year old and a three year old boy and I keep thinking at some point. I'm just thinking like what are they thinking right now and obviously I want them to feel comfortable with breastfeeding but not just mom going around with her shirt off like I'm not about that. There's a difference.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: My five year old said to me a couple of times, "Mom, your boob is out." What? Because I forgot.

SUNNY GAULT: Jennifer is in a completely different camp from me.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: I've given up Sunny, it is like it is going to be there. With nursing in-front of especially like fathers in-law, the more that you do it the more they'll get comfortable with it. The first time or two, they'll blush, they'll try not to look but the more that you do it, it'll desensitize them.

SUNNY GAULT: That's a good point. Okay, couple of more points I want to get real quick. Offer to help with chores so mom can concentrate on the baby. Did you guys have anyone come over and say "Listen, let me just do some laundry for you. Let me cook the other kids some food." Anything like that?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: That's the best. My mother-in-law did that a lot. My sister-in-law setup a meal train which is great and then the friend that brought the meals a lot of the times would stay and heat up the meal and talk to me and I'd just be nursing. It was wonderful.

SUNNY GAULT: Alright. And it is so important for a breastfeeding mom to have that food too. So it helps in so many ways. Go ahead Shannon.

SHANNON O’HARA: There was a point when I was nursing and nobody else was home. My next meal on my meal train wasn't scheduled for a few hours and I text my neighbor I was like, "Hey, I sat down to nurse and I don't have anything here. Can you bring me some crackers and like come over? Can you do this?" She was so great like it was not something that I could've done if we weren't friends. But I think that again it goes back to having support and being comfortable leveraging people. I had neighbors that would bring meals and my mom came to town, my mother-in-law came to town, my father came and we had a consistent stream of visitors from the time that Emerson was about three months up until just recently.

It was really helpful and I love being to like, "Hey, my laundry needs doing. Can you do that? Can you fold the latest laundry?" I was actually just saying to my husband the other day I was like, "If we had another baby, in nine months we'd have like a full staff of people here cooking and cleaning for us. And it would seem like a big plus to me because we're drowning in chores and he's like, "Yeah but we'd have another human to raise that is the trade-off."

SUNNY GAULT: I'm seeing the side of that a human we had to raise.

SHANNON O’HARA: That's right, I'm not quite ready for a third human.

SUNNY GAULT: Okay, talked about doing chores for the mamma to help her out. We've talked about meal trains staff so coming over providing lunch or snacks that can help replenish her and give her the strength she needs to continue breastfeeding. And the last one is to avoid giving advice. I feel like everybody kind of needs a lesson on this and we constantly need to be reminded about it because to Jennifer's point earlier. Well-meaning friends or mothers-in-law or your own mother may be thinking about what worked for them and they want to help and sometimes it doesn't come off as intended. Right Shannon?

SHANNON O’HARA: Absolutely, my mom is huge about this. She has advice for every situation and sometimes I'm just like "Look, I didn't ask you" I'm appreciative of her inputs so I started framing things like, "Oh you know I didn't ask for you to share that with me but I'm appreciative that you did it share with me that experience." So that may be in the future I could use it when it's applicable but I don't think I need that information right now. I'll just put it in my back pocket and it didn't really cause too many problems so that worked with my mom and we could frame it similarly and see if it goes well with your family.

SUNNY GAULT: Go ahead Jennifer. Any thoughts on that?

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: I'm not quite as good as you are but either just listen and node and say like, "I'll think about that, thanks."

SHANNON O’HARA: Listen if your family members are sensitive or prone to arguments, don't frame things the way that I do because my mom she just takes everything like a grain of salt and half the time I feel like she's just ignoring me.

SUNNY GAULT: It definitely depends on who's talking to and the relationship you have with that person. Because if your friend is saying it and you feel more comfortable with your friend, you can tell your friend "Listen, that doesn't apply to me." You know that doesn’t apply to me, whatever. You know but if you're talking to someone else like in-laws . . .

SHANNON O’HARA: I could never say that to my mother-in-law, she will never speak to me again.

SUNNY GAULT: We need to be respectful. Definitely, we need to do that. Alright, nice ladies, I think we created a pretty good list for our listeners out there. I want to thank you guys for being part of our episode today, for sharing your own personal experiences and your thoughts on all of this. Again we're serious like if someone wants to know how to help you. Send them this episode like this is how you can help me. It might be much easier way to talk about it than to have the face to face conversation. So thanks for everyone for listening. So for members of The Boob Group Club, be sure to check out our extra bonus content after the end of this episode. Our moms are going to share the best thing anyone has ever done to support them on their breastfeeding journey. We're going to try to narrow it down to one and it really gives some praise to that person. So we'll be right back.

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SUNNY GAULT: So before we wrap up today’s show we have a “Boob Oops”. So this is a fun segment that we do where moms can submit their funny breastfeeding, pumping, anything related to breast milk story that they've got. And so this one comes from Andrea and she says;
“When my little one was about eight months, I wanted to get some really beautiful pictures of me nursing her. I don't know if you are familiar with the Picasso painting of the women breastfeeding but I have a print of that hanging in my living room and I just think it's incredibly beautiful. Not that I expected to look like a Picasso painting or anything”.

She says, “my sister agreed to take the pictures for me. She set up the room with several beautiful pieces of cloth then she draped several pieces over me. We tried several positions, maybe we were trying too hard to get something really beautiful but we're just laughing and laughing hysterically. And she had me lay down with my little one beside me. She told me to stop laughing; I turned my face away from the camera and worked to control my laughing. She clicked the next one the little my little one that slipped off during the picture”.

She says, “I went to get the pictures developed at a one-hour photo place while we were shopping and when she came back to get it”. She says, “I walked in while he parked. I guess her husband was parking the car”. And she said, “I decided to look at the pictures to see how they turned out”. And she said, “yap when my daughter fell off there was accidentally a little bit of nipple in one of the pictures”. And she said “her face turned beet red, she thought of "Oh my gosh that the worker has seen this, what am I going to do?" She started laughing and the laughter almost turned into tears”. She said “she was too embarrassed to look at the man behind the counter who had developed them”. So obviously a pretty funny experience for her. Have you guys ever had obviously Shannon. Breastfeeding photos have you ever had breastfeeding photos taken or done anything like this on your own?

SHANNON O’HARA: I had a similar experience. Like I said my husband is in the military. So I was nursing Gabriella while my mom was at a doctor’s appointment on the base because her husband is military as well. And this officer walked by in his full... he was in uniform like he was going some sort of ceremony or something like that. And Gabriella turned and looked at him and I saw him look at her and looked at me and it was messy. So I could totally relate to the embarrassment.

SUNNY GAULT: Totally when they pop off like that you never know what's going to happen.

JENNIFER WEEDON PALAZZO: You never know when it's going to happen. A siren can go by and the baby's just like what's that? And then you're just hanging out.

SUNNY GAULT: Alright, well we do appreciate it when you guys send us this awesome “Boob Oops”. These stories are super funny. If you have one that you want to send into us for us to read on the show. You can email us through our website www.newmommymedia.com, you can also through the website www.newmommymedia.com. You can just click on the little gray button, it's on the side of the website, it says send voicemail. And you can use the speaker, the microphone that is built-in into your computer and send a voicemail that way. And we would love to hear this and talk about it on a future episode.

That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to The Boob Group.
Don’t forget to check out our sister show:
• Preggie Pals for expecting parents
• Newbies for newly postpartum moms
• Parent Savers for moms and dads with infants and toddlers and
• Twin Talks for parents with multiples.
Thanks for listening to The Boob Group. Your judgment-free breastfeeding resource.

[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. The information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. While such information and materials are believed to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.

SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line-up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series, or if you’re a business, or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com.

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