Feeding Time at the Zoo

We affectionately sometimes refer to Michael as our wee 'monkey man'. He has an abundance of hair, which is obvious on his head, but he also has residual hair on his shoulders and legs, and even a bit on his ears, which I believe is perfectly normal for a newborn baby. He's a little wrinkly too, and when he's naked, you can tell that he hasn't quite grown into his skin yet!

But more than that, this whole feeding process seems to be quite similar to how I imagine scientists work to teach chimps to do human tasks.

I don't wish to go into too much detail, but a couple of 'specialists' at various breastfeeding clinics has assured me that the reason for my continued pain is the fact that he's not getting enough breast in his mouth when he feeds. But I have no way of telling him that, except through trial and error when we try to feed. So, when he hurts me (which, at the moment, is every time he tries to latch on), it has been suggested to me that I pull him off, and try again, the idea being that he'll learn that when he latches on correctly, he'll get the milk, but when he doesn't, he doesn't get any milk. The problem with this technique is that it relies on Michael at least occassionally getting it right, so that he gets the milk. If I were to be strict with him, he'd be starving right now, because I don't know if we've ever actually had a painfree feed! So, I'm compromising with him and allowing him to feed when it's still sore, but not too sore. The downside of this is that I still have pain afterwards, which puts me off feeding him the next time he gets hungry. At the moment, we're alternating between breast feeding and expressing breast milk to feed to him in a bottle. It seems to be working ok at the moment, and my current plan is to continue going to the clinics, and trying various gadgets and devices to help him learn, and then to rethink the situation after 6 weeks, if it is still painful at that point. But hopefully, we'll have it all down by then.