Well all the kind messages and positive vibes seem to have done the trick as last night went really well. I came away feeling very elated. My tutor said she was happy and, more importantly, the parents feedback suggested they were too!

Firstly I did an ice-breaker - your name and something good about bfing, not necessarily a proven benefit, just a good point. I was concerned people might run out of things to say (10 parents there!), but they seemed to manage ok and we got some really good intrinsic motivation type answers: cheap/lose weight quicker/closer bonding - which was what I really was hoping for.

Then I did the attachment and positioning bit - I did an exercise with straws and orange quarters first of all - this shows how a baby doesn’t suck at the breast like it does on a bottle, but needs a wide open mouth, a good mouthful of breast/orange and not to have his chin on his chest or his head turned to one side. The exercise worked really well, which was lucky!  I was dreading them not ‘getting’ it or managing to get loads of juice through the straw or something like that!  I then showed them my knitted breast and talked about hard/soft palates and where the nipple should be in baby’s mouth - they all seemed to get that too and afterwards a few of them said they’d had no idea that it was so important. Thankfully one of the mums brought up mastitis so I got to really impress on them all the reasons that a&p is so important. Then I got the dads to have a go at positioning with the dolls as I talked them through it, and then I went over it a second time while the mums had a go and I showed them the baby eleanor photos (a sequence of photos of a well latched breastfeed).

I wanted to do a quick energiser next, but I wasn’t happy with it, and neither was one of the parents! I just wanted to get them moving and will have to think of a more ‘useful’ one to use next time I think - maybe a more bf specific one. Last night I did ‘get yourselves in a line in order of your dates of birth and then in order of your baby’s due dates’.

I asked for specific feedback for the baby visualisation exercise I devised, which I did after the energiser, and it seemed to go down really well. I did it in 8 stages, talking the parents through the early parts of a baby’s life and asking after each stage what they thought the baby might be feeling. Some of the parents thought that fewer, longer stages might be better and I am tending to agree with them, so will be changing the script for my second class which is in November. The feedback from the parents has made me decide that I’ll definitely keep using it and working on it - no exercise will ever please everyone and I’m really happy with the percentage of parents who said it did help them. It stimulated a lot of discussion afterwards about bed-sharing and whether going to a crying baby spoils it or not.

Then we had a break during which I asked them to choose cards from a table with closed questions on them. The questions were all designed so that we would definitely cover everything they’d asked for as well as salient points I wanted to re-iterate myself. Some of them were re-capping what we’d already talked about. I let/encouraged them to discuss each one in turn and choose what answer they wanted (yes, no or maybe), interjecting bits of relevant info here and there myself. The discussion it stimulated was brilliant and I didn’t have to say very much at all, except for clearing up uncertainties etc.

The timing was fine (surprisingly as I kept forgetting to look at my watch and there was no clock there!), and the order of the exercises seemed to work well too - by the final discussion, they were all focussing on feelings a huge amount and had really ‘got’ the idea that what they do with their babies is down to them, not the experts. Right at the end, one Dad said ‘There’s one question we haven’t covered - up until what age should you bfeed a baby?’ - my heart sank. I smiled and said ‘You’re asking this question now, with only five minutes to go???’ - everyone laughed so I thought they seemed amenable and put the question to the group as suggested at our workshop. Guess what three of the mums and one dad said straight away??? “When you feel ready to stop”!!! It really made my day, I can tell you. I mentioned the natural age of toddlers self-weaning and also the LLL statement (which I love) that bfing is beneficial as long as mum *and* baby are both happy with it.

I wish I’d done the class the evening before DH’s day off as I really want to get on with writing the essay now while it’s all fresh in my mind, but the girls are both clamouring for attention so no chance of that happening!