When sucking at something is a good thing!

As Jack Henry keeps waddling through the milestones, his new challenge to face is adjusting to the idea of breastfeeding.


Fortunately, he has already been cueing us to his interest by frequently sticking his tongue out at us. When we see this, we will provide him a soothie (pacifier) and he gets the premise of sucking pretty easily. By the way, the kid has a helluva tongue!

Time for a sidebar...

I've been told that there are three types of tongues in the world. Since I have put this forth as a hypothesis and researched it (by randomly asking people - don't ask!), this is science in the making. The three tongues: the butt tongue, the cow tongue and the Gene Simmons tongue. Jack Henry must be ready to join a rock band because he's working the KISS "I wanna rock all night and party everyday".


And now, the rest of the story...

Actually, the funniest aspect is to watch him attempt the trifecta of "suck, swallow, and breathe". This is a skill that his brain is developing. Thus, you can actually observe as he starts with the pacifier in his mouth and he sucks, sucks, sucks... then his eyes get wide-open and he looks around for a moment as if to think "hmmm, I think that I'm missing something here - oh yeah, breathe, breathe, breathe" and that's what he does. And like the instructions on your shampoo bottles, he just go into repeat mode until he tires out (also, similar to actually following those shampooing instructions - ha!).


Now, as he is mastering the pacifier, it is time to take Jack Henry through a bit of a challenge. Yup, non-nutritive sucking. He sort of describes the experience himself, but I will share a bit more.


The idea is that he will learn the association of going to the breast to find food. So Elaine will go pump first and then hold him against her breast. He will then try to learn how to latch on to the nipple and gets a slight taste of breastmilk. As he is only currently getting breastmilk delivered directly to his stomach via OG tube, he hasn't yet tasted breastmilk directly. When Elaine and the nurses time his three-hour feeding with the non-nutritive sucking, he gets the sensation of fullness in the stomach, while also tasting breastmilk with the true association of its source. (Until now, a complete mystery to him, huh?!?)

Over the next couple of weeks, he will build up his strength, skill (timing the sucking and breathing), and success in being able to breastfeed on his own.