The hand that feeds

We officially can no longer nurse in the car - at least not while it's moving. The timing is hard these days. Ian nurses around 7am and then doesn't nurse again until I pick him up around 5:30. But by 5:30 he is so adamant about nursing that we can do NOTHING ELSE until he gets him some milk. I generally carry him out of the day care with his bags hooked on my arm while he's cradled across me, nursing as I walk. And I wonder why my wrist is so sore ...

If we manage to make it to the van before he demands the boob, I have to sit in the back seat and nurse him before we can go anywhere, tacking 20 minutes onto our commute. Back when he was rear facing, Rich could drive while I hung over the seat and fed him. It made it very efficient for getting to dinner or home at a reasonable hour.

Today I tried nursing one side to sate him a bit and then strap him in and work the other side while we drove to dinner. But with the front facing seat, I can't get a good position. He and I are both struggling to get a decent latch and my foot or arm will fall asleep from whatever I'm doing.

This evening we were wanting to meet Scott for dinner. Rich was driving and I was performing elaborate yoga poses to get my boob somewhere close to Ian's face without smothering him. I shifted and he started to lose his latch. So he bit down - hard - trying to keep my boob in his mouth. My hand was wrapped around the back of his head as I braced myself up against the door. As soon as I felt the sharp bite, it spooked me and I immediately swatted at whatever was doing that. Unfortunately, I swatted my son on the back of the head.

He just looked at me and started bawling. So much for consoling him with the boob too. Ugh, I felt awful. We managed to get to dinner and I snuggled him the entire time telling him how sorry I was. We just both got spooked.

So lesson learned. No more nursing in the car. Everyone else will just have to wait. We've got some snuggling to do before we drive anywhere.