Nipple twiddling, with Hannah and Victoria

This week I’m talking to two nursing mothers about their experience of nipple twiddling and broader 'nursing manners' issues that can arise during breastfeeding. Victoria shares her experience of overcoming twiddling with her son Arran, employing strategies like verbal communication, using alternatives, and creating a dedicated storybook to help him understand. Hannah, in the middle of similar challenges with her daughter Callie-Mae, has things to learn from Victoria’s experience. We emphasise the importance of setting boundaries and recognising that accommodating a child's wants is different from addressing their needs. 

My picture book on how breastfeeding journeys end, The Story of Jessie’s Milkies, is available from Amazon here -  The Story of Jessie's Milkies. In the UK, you can also buy it from The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill, London. Other book shops and libraries can source a copy from Ingram Spark publishing.

You can also get 10% off my books on supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

Follow me on Instagram  @emmapickettibclc or find out more on my website www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com 

Resources mentioned - 

Caroline Harrower IBCLC https://www.milkandnurture.co.uk/

Cherubs breastfeeding support in Cheshire  https://www.facebook.com/groups/cherubsofcheshire/

This podcast is presented by Emma Pickett IBCLC, and produced by Emily Crosby Media.

Transcript

This transcript is AI generated.

[00:00:00] Emma: I am Emma Pickett and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself makes milk. That was my superpower at the time because I was breastfeeding my own two children, and now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end, and I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end too.

Join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing and also sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly at that process of making milk, and of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk. Thank you very much for joining me for today's episode. I have two lovely guests with me today.

I have Hannah, who's in Central Scotland and is the mother of Callie May, who's 20 months. And I have Victoria, who's in Cheshire, who's the mother of Arran, who's two. And as you'll have seen from the title of the episode, we're talking about nipple twiddling, but not just nipple twiddling, nursing manners overall and the concept of nursing manners and gym nurse sticks, which is a term we'll explain and the impact that nursing manners issues can have on people who are breastfeeding.

So before we go any further, Victoria and Hannah are in kind of in different stages on the, in their journey. So Victoria's sort of overcome the worst part of her nursing manners and, and Hannah's very much in the middle of it. So we're gonna be talking to these two different people in two different stages of their journey in different ways.

But before we do that, Victoria, you've kind of overcome your nursing manners problems mostly. Mm-hmm. For anyone who's never experienced it, what does it feel like to be struggling with nursing manners? What does it feel like to be in the middle of that?

[00:01:54] Victoria: Um, fairly awful. Um, I definitely felt that it was making me want to stop breastfeeding.

My son was a prolific twiddle, is how I described him. Um, and he would twiddle not only when he was feeding, which was an added, um, element of difficulty. But yeah, it made me definitely consider stopping breastfeeding. 'cause I was thinking maybe he had, if he had less association with my breasts, he would, um, just not think about them, even though I didn't want to stop.

But overall, yeah, a horrendous feeling and I felt like I just didn't know what to do or how to, how to stop it at all.

[00:02:34] Emma: Yeah. And, and Hannah, you are right in the middle of it now. How does it feel for you day to day? 

[00:02:39] Hannah: I think, like Victoria says, it's not. It doesn't feel nice at all, and I think, I know we'll talk about this, but I feel like we had quite a difficult start for breastfeeding and, and then it got a lot better and a lot easier.

And it feels so, it feels really weird to be in this place where I'm like, oh, this actually doesn't feel very enjoyable. It doesn't feel very nice. And I think sometimes I kinda think, oh, well it, you know, it's fine because it's not as hard as it was at the beginning. And obviously that's not a, it's not a reasonable comparison.

But yeah. And I think for Callie-Mae, it's the twiddling, especially when she's trying to go to sleep at night. I think that's the worst when she's, does it the worst. But just general, like, I want to climb on you. I want to be upside down. I want to hit your face. I want to also put my foot in your mouth. I want to do whatever I can.

Kind of flailing limbs whilst I'm having milk. I think it's. Yeah, so she's quite a, it's quite a physical thing for her. 

[00:03:44] Emma: Yeah. 

[00:03:44] Hannah: It just doesn't, yeah, it doesn't feel that kind of relaxing, like, oh, we get to sit down. Excellent. But it's not quite as relaxing as you want it to be. 

[00:03:52] Emma: And that massively impacts on your oxytocin and, and your mental health as well.

I mean, I, some people listen to this will be like, what, what? Why is this the thing? I don't even get it. Um, but actually it just means that every feed just feels skin crawling for some people. I mean, obviously we can talk about aversion later on, but it, I don't think people can really understand what it's like if you haven't been in the middle of it.

And some people will be listening to this and going, what's the problem? Just stop them doing it. What are you on about? What, why is this a thing? Just, just, you know, set a boundary and we'll, we'll talk about why that's not so easy either. Let's talk a little bit about your sort of breastfeeding journeys overall before we do a deep dive into the nursing manner stuff.

Let's start with you, Hannah. Tell us about your beginnings with Callie Ma. 

[00:04:35] Hannah: So I, it's maybe useful to say that. So I'm one of four. I'm the eldest and my mom breastfed us all and she breastfed us all well beyond infancy, I think myself and my sister were three and my brothers were four. So I have seen babies breastfeeding growing up.

Um, and when I was pregnant I was very much like, yep, I'm gonna breastfeed, but chill, whatever. It's gonna be like, it's not gonna be easy, but it's gonna be fine. Like it's this normal thing. Um, so I guess I hadn't done a lot of preparation. There was a kind of a class, we did an online antenatal course and there was a bit of content in that about breastfeeding.

I remember them talking about kind of positioning and stuff. And then when she was born, it was like a fairly uncomplicated birth. We had skin, skin afterwards and she latched. I, I dunno how quickly, but, uh, there's a photo of me eating toast while she's latched. So it must've been quite fairly soon after giving birth within an hour or so.

And I don't remember that hurting at all. Um, and also looking back, I have no idea whether she was actually like transferring any colostrum or milk at all. And then she just didn't really wanna latch after that in the hospital. I remember trying every few hours and she just didn't, didn't really wanna latch on.

I don't really remember what that was like. I don't remember if it was painful or, or if she was kind of coming on and off. I don't really remember. But, um, there wasn't, she was born at six o'clock in the evening, so by the time I was trying again, it would've been, I dunno, nine or 10 o'clock or, I dunno what time it would've been depending on when she first fed.

But um, yeah, it wasn't happening. There wasn't a lot of staff around. I was still in my room in the labor ward. Um, so when I would buzz my buzzer, it would take a really long time for any midwives to come. And then there was a, a student midwife who showed me how to express colostrum, which I tried to do when I was pregnant, but had gotten nowhere.

So I was expressing, just hand expressing and giving her that. And that was working reasonably well. But yeah, she just wasn't latching at all. And the support that I got from midwives was very much like, they would like hold my boob and sort of hold her and kind of smush the two together. Um, and she would latch.

And I don't think it was, I don't remember it being particularly painful, but um, I was just like, every time I'd be like, but I can't do that 'cause I don't have three hands and I can't hold her and hold her head and also hold my boob. And there's not enough people, like, there's not enough hands. So yeah.

So we went home and she was kind of latching a bit better when we got home. Maybe just latching more consistently. And I, we kind of got, went through a few days and I think I kind of thought everything was going okay because she was latching more frequently and she seemed to be like, interested in feeding and, and feeding, seemed to calm her down if she was upset.

And then we had our weigh in on, I guess day five probably. So she had been weighed on, I dunno, day three and she'd lost 9% of her body weight or her birth weight. And then by day five she'd lost I think 14%. So back into hospital and they did all the checks and she was kind of okay. And we didn't, um, we didn't have to stay in hospital, which was lucky, I guess.

Uh, or they didn't have space for us. I don't know. Anyway, we came home and we were doing triple feeding and that was its own, whole own episode I'm sure to talk about. Um. Yeah. 

[00:08:13] Emma: Can I just ask you, Hannah, when you went back to hospital, did you have anyone doing a feeding assessment? Did anyone watch you feed?

[00:08:20] Hannah: Nope. 

[00:08:20] Emma: No. 

[00:08:20] Hannah: Nope, Nope. And the other thing, I think maybe it's important, I didn't say it. So I stayed in hospital for two nights. My birth was pretty straightforward. I could have gone home after I think 12 hours, like they would've been happy for me to be discharged, but because I was like, I don't feel like we've got a grip on breastfeeding, it's not going well.

Like, I don't know why she won't latch in consistently. I don't. Anyway, so they said, oh, stay in, you can have some more support. And I stayed in and there was like, there was no extra support. I was in the postnatal ward by that point and there was four people in the room. And I was the only one even attempting to breastfeed.

And the support was just let me latch your baby for you or would you like to try formula? And there was just no, there was no other support. And I remember, I don't know where I'd heard the term lactation consultant, but maybe on a podcast or something. I remember saying. On, I dunno if it was the day after she was born, is there a lactation consultant?

I can see. 'cause I feel like something's not going right here. Um, and they just looked at me like I'd asked to see like the alien doctor or something. It was like, what is that? Oh 

[00:09:26] Emma: gosh, I'm so sorry. 

[00:09:27] Hannah: We don't have that. 

[00:09:28] Emma: Gotta remember this is not even two years ago. We can 

[00:09:30] Hannah: No, this 

[00:09:31] Emma: is a story we don't think we hear in the sort of 2023.

[00:09:34] Hannah: No. And this is in Scotland where we're just making a big song advance that we've got great breastfeeding rates at six to eight weeks or whatever, which is, it's good obviously and a hundred 

[00:09:42] Emma: percent baby friendly hospital. So you giving birth in a baby friendly hospital? 

[00:09:46] Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and anyway, so eventually they booked me an appointment with the infant feeding team, which was for 10 days after she was born.

And so we were in hospital on day. Day would technically be day two or day three, I don't know. Anyway, and we were like, what are we gonna do till then, like, anyway, so when we, yeah, we came back in, um, there was no feeding assessment. I don't think they watched her feed at all on that visit to hospital. And I didn't.

Yeah, you're in such a state of heightened stress that now I think, well, of course someone should watch you feed. Like even if you don't know that's the guidelines, of course that makes sense. But at the time I was just like, my baby's starving. Is my baby going to die? Like, what's, yeah, what's, what's going on here?

And yeah, no one, no one watches feed. I was, again, I think it was luck. There happened to be a pump, I think a modela maybe in the little room that we were waiting in. And the one of the midwives was like, oh, do you wanna try using this? So I like stacked myself up to it and yeah, managed to produce loads of milk.

So, yeah. 

[00:10:53] Emma: So you went home triple feeding even though no one had actually seen your breastfeed. I mean, let's just take a moment to think how horrifying that really is. No, I mean it could have been, I mean, I don't want to jump ahead here, but it could have been some simple positioning issue that was the problem.

Yeah. And if someone observed you feeding, they may have adjusted and then you might not have even needed to have triple fed. I mean, possibly with, with a 14% loss, they probably would've recommended a bit of supplementing. But the the most important piece of the puzzle no one was looking at and you were just being told to triple feed.

[00:11:23] Hannah: I really think that was the issue. I really think because every day when the midwives would come to our house, they would latch her or help me latch her, but they weren't kind of watching her full feeds. And then when she was a week old, I went to a breastfeeding group, ran by Caroline Harrower, who I think you probably know.

Caroline Harrower is an A 

[00:11:40] Emma: BM legend 

[00:11:41] Hannah: and 

[00:11:42] Emma: a fantastic 

[00:11:42] Hannah: lactation 

[00:11:43] Emma: consultant. So shout out to her. 

[00:11:45] Hannah: Yeah. And she was just like, oh, I mean, it wasn't this simple, this is really minimizing her advice, but she was like, have you tried just laying back a little bit? And, uh, then that was kind of, I mean, it wasn't fine after that, but it was like a thousand percent better.

[00:12:01] Emma: Yeah. 

[00:12:01] Hannah: And she was, yeah, I, she was feeling better then, but I was in less pain. It was much, much, much better. So I think it was, I think it was partly positioning. I also think that maybe there was something around, so I, she was born, she ended up being born with forceps and they'd given me a spinal anesthetic in case because of where, where it was in labor that they thought, if that doesn't work, he'll go and have a C-section.

So I was having IV fluids, and so I wonder if there was something about, uh, yeah, slightly inflated birth weight, which again, I'd like heard about this thing on a podcast before giving birth, because I was absolutely obsessed with giving birth and figuring out how to do it in the best way I could. Um, and uh, I remember saying to one of the midwives like, oh, I've heard this thing about IV fluids and inflated birth weight.

And the midwife's just like, Hmm. I don't think that's the thing. We don't need to reigh her. Um, so I don't know if it's that, that might just be me. 

[00:12:59] Emma: No, I mean that would, no, that's not grasping at straws. I think everybody who works in early little baby world would agree that when we have a lot of IV fluid during labor, that's going to impact birth weight.

I think most people would acknowledge that. Before we hear from, um, Victoria, how long were you triple feeding? How long was it before you weren't doing anything other than breastfeeding? 

[00:13:18] Hannah: Actually, don't know. Not too long. But again, I think, 'cause I was given quite poor advice about stopping, um, I dunno how long it would've been.

A couple of weeks. A few weeks. I can't fully remember. Uh, I, I know when we went to the infant feeding team when she was 10 days old, I was asking, I think by that point she wasn't at her birth weight. But she was close to it. So I was asking about when, like, when are we allowed, when are we allowed to stop doing this?

Um, and there was really, I think one of the big frustrations was there was no guidance about like when to stop, how to stop. I remember asking the midwife who was at that infant feeding, uh, appointment, how do I stop? And she was said that there's two options. You can either just stop cold Turkey or you can kind of gradually wean and it's up to you what you do.

[00:14:10] Emma: Deep sigh. I mean, how did it feel when she said that? 

[00:14:15] Hannah: I, I remember that appointment. I felt, I actually felt so stupid in that appointment when we went there. I was still, I was getting nipple pain. Um, she was latching, obviously not fantastically because I was still in pain, but it wasn't excruciating pain.

Um, and. She was kind of close to her birth weight. So they weren't worried about her weight anymore. They weren't worried about my supply 'cause I was pumping loads. Um, and I just kind of remember the, the midwife sort of being like, it seems like everything is great and everything is sorted. And she watched me latch her and watch telling me feeds.

And I remember I'd been sitting there for however long and the midwife was just tapping me on her computer doing work. And I just was like, this is so awkward. Like she, it's just silent. I'm just sitting here. Um, and I just was a bit like, I, I wanna leave. I wanna leave. Like, do I need to stay? Um, and she just was like, no, you can go if you want to.

So nothing about like, oh, I should see when the baby comes off the breast, like what it looks like, blah, blah. Um, and yeah, so, and I remember saying like, oh, my nipples still feel quite sore when she's feeding. And afterwards, and she kind of had a look. I think she, well, she must have looked before I fed.

She was just like, oh, I don't see any damage. And yeah, so I just, yeah, I felt just stupid. I just felt like I shouldn't be here. Like, I don't need this appointment. But I did. I felt like I needed it, but that was the message I was getting was like, why are you here? You don't need this. Yeah. 

[00:15:50] Emma: I'm so sorry. I mean, trying to be charitable.

I think midwives are very, very overstretched and I think sometimes they get a kind of emotional disconnect to be able to survive the, the, the job that they're being asked to do. 

[00:16:04] Hannah: Yeah. I mean, she wasn't, she wasn't, yeah, she wasn't mean. She wasn't nasty. She wasn't, I think I just inside was like, I am so stressed.

I am so stressed and I, I'm not doing this well and I don't feel confident doing it, and I'm so scared that it's gonna go wrong, and I don't know why it's going better, and I don't know why. I'm like, it hurts. And I wasn't really able to verbalize any of that really. And I think she just didn't, she didn't pick up on that.

[00:16:34] Emma: Yeah. 

[00:16:36] Hannah: And didn't pick up that there was someone that was Yeah. Really struggling and 

[00:16:39] Emma: Yeah. 

[00:16:39] Hannah: Yeah. Totally. No idea what was going on. 

[00:16:43] Emma: Yeah. Well it's, to your credit that you came through that, that tough beginning to get to a place where you are now still, still breastfeeding it at 20 months. That's, that's a huge achievement.

And we'll, we'll to come on in a minute to talk a bit more about the current challenge you're facing, but let's hear from you, Victoria. Tell us about your early breastfeeding with Arran.

[00:17:02] Victoria: Um, so I think overall I'd describe it as good. It went well. Um, I planned a home birth but ended up transferring and even though my birth was probably fairly, um, like standard common, um, I found it quite traumatic.

Um, he was born five on two and I had stitches, which were horrendous. So I remember immediately after it was born, I just had such a strong, like I just have to breast fetus. In pregnancy. I had been very sure that I wanted to breastfeed, but like a million other people, oh, I'll just see how it goes. You know, I'm not gonna put too much pressure on myself, but as soon as he was born I was like, no, I'm doing this.

And I felt also like, it's a bit insane now that I felt like this. 'cause I know that the way the birth unfolded, you know, wasn't my fault. And I don't need to feel guilty about it. But I definitely did at the time. It felt like breastfeeding him was gonna like, help in fact that that didn't, that the birth didn't go to plan.

It was gonna like, you know, just make things a bit better. It was like something positive that I could do for him. 'cause the birth wasn't that. So yeah, I breasted him in hospital. Um, and we were discharged really quickly. I didn't wanna be there any in the first place. Um, he was born at five, just after five, and I think I was discharged at midday.

So, yeah, I fed him I'm sure quite a few times, but I remember the first feed in hospital, I actually have a video of it, and it's awful. Like you can't see his nose, it's so, so bad. It was a similar thing to what Hannah was saying, and you know, it was like a, oh, I can help hold the boob, you know, flunk the baby's face onto it.

It wasn't like how it should be, but at that point it didn't hurt. I think probably because maybe other things hurt more, so I wasn't really thinking about that. But it, it was fine. We fed a few times, came home, I can't remember, is it day three or day five that there weighed for the first time and he'd already, he'd gained weight.

Like he never lost any weight. So I knew that that was unusual and I knew that I was really lucky for that to have happened. But I think again, like the fierce, like written determination, um, any, like, he would turn his head, I'd be like, get on, you know, just feeding him. But at this point I was. In some discomfort.

Like my, I had nipple pain. I'm really lucky where I live to have a infant feeding team called Champs that are based in Cheshire. So I'm East Cheshire. I feel like it's, it's broader than just East Cheshire. I think they cover quite a big area. I knew about them, I'd learned about them. Antenatally a midwife.

Um, yeah, antenatally had mentioned it. Um, but they called me the day that he was born just to remind me of the service that they offered, that he told me about the drop-ins that they had locally and that they also offered home and visits if I needed. Um, and then they sent follow-up text message with all like, super helpful, you know, this is a clinic 10 till 12 on this day here.

Really amazing. So he was born on a Tuesday and the drop in was on Friday. So we went to that drop in, um, on the Friday morning. And yeah, re really our issue was just shallow. Um, he just had a shallow latch, so I just needed some support with positioning and attachment, which wasn't resolved in that one drop in session alone.

You know, I remember going for a couple of weeks after he was born and each week it just got a bit better and a bit less painful. And then from then on it kind of just got easier. I remember at the beginning being like, what on earth? Like, why do they feed so much? Like is it normal than it was? But it was, yeah, surprised.

I hadn't really been around men, like not many of my close friends have children and those that do either live a distance away from me and or didn't breastfeed or did a combination of feeding. So it wasn't, um, yeah, it wasn't something that I'd really experienced. So yeah, it just got easier. I suppose he got older, he fed less.

[00:21:19] Emma: That was the, the start of the journey and then the twiddling started.

[00:21:22] Victoria: Yes, eke. Yeah.

[00:21:24] Emma: Let's talk about that next. But before we do that, let's just take a moment to hear the difference between someone who has to wait 10 days for an infant feeding team appointment and somebody who gets texts and messages and offers of home visits.

And, you know, we are doing this clinic two days later. This is the same country, well technically England and, and Scotland. And as you say, Hannah, we've, we've just started a huge thing in the press about Scottish breastfeeding rates and Scottish breastfeeding support, but yet we have this enormous variation within the uk.

It is absolutely bananas and I think anyone who's hearing this from the states will, will hear your story. Hannah, about what do you mean? There wasn't a lactation consultant in the hospital? I promise. In the UK you can have a large hospital with not a single lactation consultant on staff. 

[00:22:10] Hannah: Yeah, this is the largest, I don't know how, where Fourth Valley Hospital sits within how large Scottish hospitals are, but it is certainly one of the largest hospitals.

I would say top five. That's me guessing. But yeah, it's a huge health board area. It's a big, big new hospital, like a big labor kind of baby, women and children section. Um, and yeah, the support, and I think, like I've made a, a complaint about some of the, the services, but um, it was just, so I think the biggest challenge was the inconsistency, like the midwives that were coming to visit every day and waiting her every day.

And even when we were on the triple feeding plan every day it would be like, oh, try doing this. And the plan would change. And it was, you just felt like, I don't know, like I've just, I've just got used to the last 24 hours of doing X, Y, Z, and now you want me to do this, do it differently. And I don't know.

And. Yeah, I think it's just that it was the inconsistency that felt like you don't, you just cannot, like, can't like catch your breath at all. 

[00:23:15] Emma: Yeah. It's very frustrating, isn't it? I'm so sorry.

I had love to tell you about my four most recent books. So we've got the story of Jesse's Milky, which is a picture book from two to six year olds that really tells the story of little Jesse and how his breastfeeding journey may come to an end in one of three different ways.

Maybe there'll be a new baby sister. Maybe his mom will need to practice parenthood weaning. Maybe he will have a self weaning ending. It's a book that helps your little people understand that there are lots of different ways breastfeeding journeys might end, that we are there to support them through all of them.

And also we sometimes have needs to also on endings, we have supporting the transition from breastfeeding, which is a guide to weaning that really talks through how to bring breastfeeding to a close in a way that protects your emotional connection with your child. There are also chapters on different individual situations like weaning an older child when there's still a baby, feeding, weaning in an emergency, weaning in a special needs situation.

Then we have supporting breastfeeding past the first six months and beyond. That's really a companion to sit alongside you as you carry on breastfeeding through babyhood and beyond. What are the common challenges and how can we overcome them? And let's hear some stories about other people who've had a natural term breastfeeding gym.

Me. Then we have the breast book, which is a puberty guide for nine to 14 year olds. It talks about how breasts grow. It answers common questions. It talks about what breastfeeding is. I talk about bras. I really want to leave a little person feeling confident and well-informed as breasts enter their lives.

So if you want to buy any of those books, I am eternally grateful. If you want to buy one of the supporting books, you can go to the Jessica Kingsley Press website. That's uk.jkp.com. Use the code mm PE 10 to get 10% off. And if you have read one of those books and you can take a moment to do an online review, I would be incredibly grateful.

It really, really makes a difference. And as you can tell from the fact I'm making this advert, I have no publicity budget. Thank you.

Okay, let's talk about Twiddling Victoria. When did twiddling begin for.

[00:25:28] Victoria: I've blocked a lot of this out of my memory. It's like self-preservation I think. But I think he was about 14 months, um, when he started.

And it started just by, I've been uni boobing, so just feeding him on my right side since I think about 10 months.

[00:25:47] Emma: Tell us how Uni Boobing started. Was that something he just gradually showed a preference and, and you just dropped away from feeding on the other side? How did that come about?

[00:25:55] Victoria: He was a big, big feeder in his like early six, seven months.

He fed a lot. Um, and then when he got to kind of nine, 10 months, I noticed compared to my peers and baby groups and those kind of things that he didn't feed as much. Um, I had no reason to think it was an issue, but I guess like I knew mom paranoia is like, he's not feeding enough. I need to be feeding him more.

So I was offering. Previously when he was younger, I just responsive, said, you know, if he showed a sign I would feed him. But then, yeah, nine, 10 months I just started offering him and trying to feed him all of the time. Um, every couple of hours, even though he would really be happy at this point, maybe going four or five hours between feeds.

And he started biting my left side. So I went actually back to Chairman and feeding support and mentioned it and I was worried he was feeding less, but I'm trying to feed him and he's biting me and I kind of knew the answer. He's like not interested in beating at the breast, which is why he's like, you know, showing frustrations or messing about whatever it is.

And I spoke about just feeding him on my right side because he doesn't seem to bite me on that side. Um, so then that's kind of how it happened. Um, okay. He was just interested in feeding less. I did regret it. Slightly, I wish I'd kind of just thought about not force feeding it, I suppose, and just waiting for the cues again and keeping him on both because he then, I can't remember when, but his appetite for milk did pick up again at some point, and I then only had a supply on one size and I felt that he was feed feeding very frequently and that if I'd have had both supplies to go by, that would've been better.

[00:27:55] Emma: Okay.

[00:27:55] Victoria: Um, but yeah, generally it's not caused, like, it hasn't caused any problems. Um, I was probably just a bit hasty to make the decision just to go to one size.

[00:28:06] Emma: I think biting is so horrible that it's fair enough that people make desperate decisions. I think everyone can understand why you made that decision, but, but it's really helpful I think for you to outline.

That relationship between over offering and biting, because that is something I see a lot. Lots of parents, as you say, start to get nervous around intervals. And I think sometimes when we've been measuring our feeds with apps, we can start to panic when gaps get bigger and, and we've been measuring hours and minutes and we've lost sight of necessarily connecting with babies cues and yeah, really common I find babies their way of saying, no thank you is, is biting or, or pushing or being aggressive.

Um, so I think it's really helpful that you've, you've explained that, so your uni boobing and he's around 14 months and so he's twiddling on the, on the breast that's not producing milk. Is that, is that what's happening?

[00:28:56] Victoria: Yeah. So he started by twiddling Yeah, on my left breast during feeds on and off. And then over the months following that, it became all the time twiddling when he was feeding and twiddling.

Outside of feeding, he would ask to feed, I would sit on the sofa, we'd get in feeding position, and he would suck his fingers.

He also had a, yeah, a habit of sucking his middle fingers, like thumb sucking, I suppose. Um, but yeah, he wouldn't want to feed, he'd just want to suck his fingers. And twiddle, which you mentioned before, Emma, the like skin crawling feeling that is like, so just exactly how it felt, you know, I didn't know how to stop it.

It, it became our breastfeeding tool, I suppose. You know, like the parenting tool is so helpful. It can stop meltdowns. It can soothe comfort, quiet and soften everything. Twiddling became that, um, over breastfeeding. Um, I think I, I reread the email that I'd sent to you ever when I was at my desperate time, which was just before he was two.

Um, I'd said. I had mentioned about him being more devastated about the end of twiddling than if I stopped breastfeeding. Him and I, I really did feel like that. Now I feel differently, but at the time it was just his thing. It was just what he did.

[00:30:20] Emma: Yeah. I think some people listen to this would be going, Hey, well why didn't you stop it?

And I think you've explained really clearly when it has such a powerful effect on them emotionally, and you know it's gonna calm them down, you know it's gonna prevent a meltdown. You know, it's gonna soothe them, it's gonna help 'em get to sleep. You end up thinking to yourself, I'm just gonna grip my teeth.

I can, I can just cope with this because the impact on them is so positive. Plus, we don't necessarily live in a world where we feel we're allowed to put ourselves first, where we're allowed to look after ourselves. And he's also at an age where you can't really say exactly what's going on and explain it and, and expect him to have empathy.

But I'm guessing you got to a point where you thought, no, can't do this anymore. When did that, did you have one particular day when that hit you, or did it just kinda creep up on you?

[00:31:04] Victoria: I mean, I always hated it. Um, but yeah, it definitely crept up. And then my cycle returned at maybe 19, 20 months and I found then during ovulation and during my period, which is quite a long time for each month, um, I really found it unbearable.

Like I had lots of sensitivity then. Um, so yeah, that's when I reached out to you and started, you know, going in the depths of the internet. But the internet is great, but so, um, not great and it wasn't overly helpful for me because mainly when people talk about twiddling, it's at the same time as breastfeeding.

So, you know, lots of the tricks of, well, removing them, you know, saying we don't do this when we're feeding. Didn't help me because he would do it all the time. I mean, it was literally up to like two hours a day that he was twiddling. And what did you do?

[00:31:59] Emma: Tell us about your approach, how things changed.

[00:32:01] Victoria: So I had a consultation with you, which was the best thing ever because I, I reread, I've reread my messages and my emails and my, um, like notes to my friend and my boyfriend.

It like, in preparation for this call, even just after a few days after speaking to you, it was, it made a big difference. But the first thing that we did was actually just introducing Arran to the idea that it was sore for Mummy, which is kind of obvious now I say it. But at the time, you know, like we've said, it was such a tool, um, and source of comfort.

It just didn't occur to me telling him no. So yeah, the first thing was just to tell him that it was sore from me. And then we also started stopping whatever task we were doing. Um, so if we were on our way to the park and he wanted to twiddle, I would literally stop in my tracks and say, oh, Arran, I noticed that you're twiddling, it's starting to get a bit sore, so once you've finished twiddling, we can go to the park or read this book, or, you know, whatever activity.

Go for a snap whenever it might be. So that was for the first few days. And then we introduced counting down to 10, or up from 10, I can't remember. Yeah, counting up to 10, um, which was exactly the same thing, acknowledging that he's twiddling, he's starting to feel a bit sore. We're just gonna do 10 seconds and then again we can carry on what we're doing.

He responded so well to that. This was maybe like day four or five and. Even before I got to 10, he would come, he would take his hand away and he would start counting, and then we would make a big deal of saying, oh, thank you. That's so much better for mummy. And you know, sign in, thank you. And clapping.

And he loved all of that. So that, yeah, went really well. So we did that probably four week or two. And then we introduced a book, which we, I can't remember which website we used, um, but we had wrote, written a little story for him.

[00:34:07] Emma: So you made your own book using one of these? Yeah. True print photo books, mixed book. There are lots of companies that do it where you can upload your own photos and actually doesn't actually end up costing that much more than buying a picture book. Not that there is a nipple twiddling picture book. So you made a book, Faron and what, what was in that book?

[00:34:24] Victoria: Yeah. So it's called the Tail of the Twiddling baby.

My husband took it very seriously, um, which I was glad about at the time. But the concept just goes like, Arran was a baby, a tiny baby with tiny hands. He started to twiddle it comforted him. Um, his hands got bigger. Arran grew bigger, his hands got bigger. It got sore for Mummy. Here. All the fun things that we can do with our hands when we're not twiddling, you know, play drums, go to the park, go on the swing.

And one day Mummy and Arran decided that they wouldn't twiddle anymore, so they could do all of these fun things instead, which he loved. He's always been really into books anyway, so it was, it, it felt like an obvious thing really to do. Still reading now actually I've got it here. Um, 'cause I wanted to myself of it, but yeah, we do, we do still read it occasionally.

So yeah, we introduced the book and then at that, that week we also reduced him down to just being able to twiddle in the evening. Like from when we got home from nursery until like bedtime. That's when we did have some upset. Um, he didn't like not being able to do it in the morning, especially, he's never been a particularly good sleeper.

So he would wake up at kind of half, four, half five and want to come into bed and twiddle. That was difficult for everybody because, and again, that's kind of how it crept upon me in the first place. It was just so much easier. Elise, I could lie down and he could twiddle for the next hour. Um, even though I didn't enjoy it, you know, Elise, we're not like, oh, playing the piano, you know, at half five.

So, yeah, that was, that we had maybe three or four days when we were reducing, um, or when he was only able to twiddle in the evening. Then he, we got on occasion quite unhappy about it, especially when he was tired. But I would say it was bearable, you know, I was there for him, you know, we didn't just sneak it up upon him.

We would speak to him quite often about how well he was doing and not twiddling and how would you know we're gonna go onto this n next step. And it might be a bit difficult, but mommy's here and he could, I never also restricted breastfeeding. That was something that he could do instead. But yeah, he, he was upset.

It was maybe for a minute, you know, maximum a minute that he cried a couple of times a day for three or four days. So. It was bearable for me. Um, that was my biggest fear, that it was just gonna be, we were gonna be up all night and he was gonna be super upset for, you know, hours and hours overnight. Which, which didn't happen.

[00:37:04] Emma: Okay. So you've got to, you got to a place where twiddling stopped completely and just paint us a picture of what was he doing instead, what was he doing with his hands. So let's say you're on the sofa, he's snuggling. Is he still sucking his fingers? What, what, where's his other hand going? What were the alternatives for him?

[00:37:24] Victoria: Um, so we tried alternatives. Actually. I bought a secondhand breastfeeding necklace. Um, I did like stickers on my chest for him in the hope that he might yeah, be drawn away. I tried to get him to play with like the clips on my, like breastfeeding vest instead. But he like hated everything else. Actually, he used to cry when put the breastfeeding and necklace on, I think.

'cause I told him, oh, Arran, mommy's gonna wear this necklace. If you want to twiddle, you can play with this instead. Um, he really never, never took to any of that. So he's not really doing anything with his other hand. I'm sometimes folded it, um, instead, which he, again, not really a big fan of. But one thing I, we did notice after twiddling had stopped was that he became much more active at the breasts.

You know, cartwheels, legs in the air, one's over here, what's in mommy's ear, kind of, um, behaviors. But in comparison to twiddling that was, um, so yeah, nothing, nothing else. And he also increased the amount of breastfeeding that he was doing. So he used to feed for five minutes and twiddle for half an hour.

He's now feeding for 20 minutes instead.

[00:38:45] Emma: Okay. So that is a really interesting picture of an approach to to, to solving this problem. First of all, showing him that you notice it. 'cause that's one thing, it's part of the furniture, it's part of the background almost. When you say to a child who's twiddling, Hey, stop twiddling.

They're like, what are you on about? What, what? I'm not doing anything, what talking about? So we have to kind of label it and talk about it and notice it. And then even with a fairly young child, I think we can start to say how we are feeling and start to say that this is uncomfortable for us. And lots of parents will be like, oh no, I don't want 'em to feel guilty.

No, no, no. I don't want, I don't want that feeling of guilt for them. I don't want 'em to, to know they've hurt me. But actually I would argue it's more harmful to continue and let them cause you discomfort and let them cause you distress. That's not fair to put them in that position. And, and the worst thing I think is when you tolerate it and they look at your face and they see, hang on.

She's feeling something here and I dunno what she's feeling and this is really confusing and worrying me, so I'll need to regulate myself with more twiddling. So I think it's, you know, honest in any relationship to be truthful and authentic, which is exactly what you were. And then that concept of stopping in your paces.

So if you're walking along and he's twiddling while you're walking along, literally physically stopping, drawing attention without any anger, we're not telling him off. It's just kind of, oh, I just want to pay your, pay attention to the fact you're doing this. I'd like you to stop doing this, then we can carry on with our day.

Um, and I love your idea of celebrating and clapping and, and making a big fuss and saying thank you. I'm also a big fan of boobs themselves talking. Um, not everyone's wanting to act and do funny voices, but, but boobs saying Thank you too, and, and they're really grateful as well. Um, and then I just love your idea of using the book.

I think that's, that's so important, um, for children for whom twiddling is absolutely central. Um, I think books are such a great tool because we can repeat them over and over again, and that's how we can have those messages, you know, soak into their little heads by just repeating the concepts over and over again.

So thank you for sharing that, that story, Victoria, of how you overcame it. We'll talk in a minute about what life's like now, but let's come to you, Hannah. So how does it feel to hear Victoria describe that journey? 

[00:40:57] Hannah: Yeah, there's so much that I definitely relate to, I guess. And I think, yeah, that feeling of like.

This is actually really horrible, but also has a really calming effect on them. So I'm just gonna kind of grin and bear it. 'cause the, the alternative feels like it might be worse because I might have to get up like say at half past four in the morning or you might not go to sleep or whatever it is. So, yeah, I think, yeah, and it's, I think it's reassuring 'cause some of the stuff you're talking about is things that I have been doing and I think for Callie-Mae it's, it's the twiddling, but it's also that more like general kind of nursing manners that I think is part of it.

I think for her it's, there's, yeah, quite a sensory thing. I dunno if she's, yeah. Needing sensory input or something. I don't know. 

[00:41:51] Emma: So what kind of things is she doing? If someone was watching you fade? What, what are we seeing? 

[00:41:55] Hannah: So she's always been, since I guess coming out of the newborn stage, she's always been quite active a lot of the time when she's been.

On the breast. So she, I, I dunno how old she was, but I remember her being quite young and kind of, if I was sat on the sofa and she was, her legs were on the side where the arm of the sofa was, she'd be pushing her feet into the arm of the sofa and I'd have to keep like moving further and further away.

So she couldn't do that because when she did it, she'd be like, you know, shuffling herself along and that would be becoming painful. So she's always been quite active. I think there's always been a lot of like hands and kind of grabbing necklaces and neck lines and had caught my hair 'cause she would grab my hair and pull my hair.

And then I think now it's more like a lot of gymnastics and a lot of wanting to have, be that other hand be in my brow on the other side that she's not feeding from or be yeah. Just doing something. And it, it was all, it was in my mouth for a long time before I, and I think that was before she started twiddling on the other nipple.

I think, but she would always wanna be like, ah, put her hand in your mouth. My mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That up my nose. And I was like, I can, I can actually take you kind of holding onto my, this is ridiculous. I was like, I can, I can stomach you holding onto my teeth. I cannot stomach you putting your fingers up my nose.

I can't do it. So that, I just would keep stopping her and she doesn't really ever put her hand in my nose.

[00:43:21] Emma: Okay. So 

that's interesting. So, so there was a boundary that you could not cope with 

[00:43:26] Hannah: Yeah. 

[00:43:26] Emma: And you 

Yeah. 

Absolutely. Held that boundary. 

[00:43:30] Hannah: Yeah. I just stopped, I just kept stopping her and yeah, I can't really remember if I would say much to be, I don't know how old she would've been at that point.

I think that was probably, I dunno if she probably was one, but maybe quite close to maybe she, yeah, around about the one year mark. Okay. But I think, so between about. This is like going back again. And, but I think it's relevant because it's maybe why I sort of put up with it between about two and a half months and about six, six and a half, seven months, she was so distractible, so distractible.

And it's a completely different age to what Victoria was talking about. But I really, I totally relate to the thing about the anxiety that they're not feeding enough. Because she would go from every time, you know, once we got the latch shot and everything, every time I would offer her the boobs, she would have it and she would be really happy there.

She'd be loving life. And then 20 minutes later she was unhappy. She'd have it again quite happily, no problem. And then it was like overnight something changed and she just didn't, she didn't want it. And it was like that for months. And she was just so distractible. And I think probably in hindsight, I was just trying to offer it far too much and she was just like, no, go away.

I don't want it. I wanna play. Like she was learning to roll over. She was learning, like she learned to crawl really young. She was learning to crawl all these things. Um, and I think in hindsight she was just like, why is this crazy lady keep putting this boob in my face? I wanna be over here like playing with my book or whatever.

Can you go away? So every time I would try and feed her, she would just scream and scream and scream. And I found it so distressing. Like I cannot, I cannot say how distressed and I found it, and it was what Victoria was saying about feeling like birth didn't really go how I want. So breastfeeding can be this thing that I can get right and I can do it properly and it can fix this, like unhappiness that I have about things not going how I want.

And had I been like that until she was, yeah, about two and a half, three months. And then I was like, no, I, I'm not doing, this isn't going right either. Why doesn't, you know, why doesn't she want this? And I found it so distressing, just like awful, awful, awful. And so then I think when she was about 6, 7, 8 months or so, and she started to feed more.

I just was so happy that I was able to feed her without her screaming. Like before that point, I would really, I would avoid going out for long periods of, because I was like, well, I'm gonna have to try and feed her and if I try and feed her, she'll scream and then she'll suck. And then I'll get my lett down and then she'll come off and there'll be milk flying everywhere and I'll be like trying to cover my nipple and I'll be trying to hold her.

And so I would try and I would, yeah, avoid trying to feed her in public or think like, oh, I don't wanna go out for very long 'cause I might have to try and feed her. Um, and so when she started getting into boob again, I was just like, fantastic. Yes, thank you so much. Um, and I was so happy about it. But then I think when she started, maybe I should have looked back through my photos and messages and things before this, but when she was probably definitely pre a year when she started doing kind of yeah, gymnastics.

I just kind of thought this is like, this is great. She's so happy here. I don't really care that she's like trying to turn herself upside down 'cause she's happy here and she wants to be here and I, I guess didn't feel that like rejection of her not wanting. 

[00:46:52] Emma: That makes perfect sense. I bet you that's a, the story of a lot of people struggling with nursing manners, actually.

I think you've really, um, shone a light on something there that I think is really useful. 'cause that distractibility phase is a killer. It is. I remember actually when I was, my son was six months old. I went to a lecture league meeting and I remember feeling so emotional, thinking about that refusal in the day.

And, you know, reverse cycling at night would often happen instead, but just not wanting to feed in the day and how terrifying that was. And you're right, if they suddenly want to be there, even if they're wanting to be there because they want to do cartwheels, that's such a relief that you're willing to put up with a heck of a lot.

And then the weeks go by and before you realize that every feed is like that. And, and how do you, how do you change that? 

[00:47:37] Hannah: Yeah, I could talk to you for a whole hour about that like four month period. Um, it was just awful. And I would just go to Caroline's group every week and. I would just like, I really feel like that just kept me, kept me alive, kept us going basically.

'cause I would just cry every day and be like, why is this happening? And she wouldn't take a bottle. So everyone's answer would be like, oh, just give her the bottle. But yeah, she hated that just as much. So 

yeah, there's something that happens where the world gets, just, gets, gets interesting. And they don't necessarily, they don't consciously know that they're refusing a breastfeed, but they just got other things they wanna do and, and yeah, that it's not really a nursing stripe because they will often feed when they're sleepy and they'll feed for naps, but they just won't be feeding in the day when there's other stuff to look at.

[00:48:19] Emma: So what you describe is sort of bit of gymnastics. I love the phrase gymnastics, which is nursing while doing gymnastics. And it's, it's, so, it's not really one thing, it's not, there is twiddling, it's not, it's not really concrete one thing, it's just a whole range of different behaviors. Um, I guess, you know, one person will listen to this and say, okay, well maybe the approach is, is not to stop it.

Maybe we need to work. Look on, look at your psychology, look at helping you to be calmer around it. By the way, I'm not advocating we do this, but this is, this is one option. Maybe the answer to nursing manners is not to stop the child's behavior every single time, but sometimes it's more to focus on us.

What can we do in that moment to cope? Do we need to do breathing exercises? Do we need to do, um, you know, mindfulness stuff? Um, do we need to do distraction? Maybe we, some people would want to continue it, but yet, but be able to cope with it. But it doesn't sound like you are someone who wants to continue it.

It sounds like you, you'd like to change things. If I asked you to pick one of her behavior, so the nose sticking your finger up the nose, that was a line. If we pull that line a little bit further, what's the next thing that really bothers you that she does? 

[00:49:28] Hannah: I think it probably is the twiddling. I think it would be the twiddling.

It would be the twiddling at night, because that's when I find it the worst. She doesn't, she does want to twiddle in the day almost every feed, I would say. But it, in the day, it's a combination of, oh, I'll twiddle and then I'll try and turn myself around and then I'll do this other thing. So it's broken up by doing these other things.

But the twiddling at night, I think is the one I find the hardest because it's obviously quite calming for her as well. And I just am like, I just want you to go to sleep. And like Victoria was saying, she's not a fantastic sleeper. She doesn't, she never slept through the night. Um, yeah. So anything I can do that gets her to go to sleep fast.

So that's probably the most unbearable cluelessly followed by anything that the kind of pushing the feet on a sofa arm or something. But that, because it causes her latch to break and then she's sort of like slipping and it's becoming painful. 

Yeah. 

Um. Yeah, 

[00:50:27] Emma: so the, so the kicking stuff that's, um, she's not getting a lot of milk transfer if she's obviously adjusting her latch.

So I guess in a, in a big picture sense, I'd be looking at things like, you know, how long has it been since the last feed? Are you seeing feeding cues? Does she actually want to, to transfer milk? Um, let's look at the whole picture. When you talk about twiddling helping her get to sleep. I guess I'd also say if it's taking her a long time to get to sleep, before we even talk about the twiddling, let's just check what's happening with sleep pressure.

Um, what's the gap between her nap and bedtime? So what's the typical nap at the moment? 

[00:51:03] Hannah: Ah, so varied. So when she is at nursery, which is two days a week, she doesn't have a nap. So then she goes, she gets up about seven in the morning and she goes to bed at seven o'clock at night or as close to seven as we can get it.

And then she will fall asleep very fast. She'll still want to twiddle, but she will be asleep within. A couple of minutes if she's with me and I feed her to sleep, she will, she could sleep for, I dunno, yesterday she slept for an hour and a half and I woke her up. Um, and I didn't hold her that whole time.

I fed her to sleep and then I put her down on her bed and then woke her up. Yeah. If she's not with me and she's with like she's with her granny today or she's with her dad, then she probably only sleeps for half an hour or 45 minutes in a car or in a pram. Um, I would say so she's always up at least six hours before she goes to bed after her nap.

Um, often longer. 

[00:51:59] Emma: Okay. So the days when she's napped with you, sorry to interrupt you. The days when she's doing a big, long nap with you, are those the days where it's taking her a little bit longer to go to sleep? 

[00:52:08] Hannah: Probably, but a little bit longer is probably like. 15 minutes compared to five minutes. Okay.

It's not a huge amount of time. I just, my partner and I were having this conversation yesterday 'cause he was like, oh, it's half past two and she's still sleeping. Hannah, she's gonna go to bed really late. And I was like, yeah, but it means I get like a lovely little break in the day. But then, yeah, 9:00 PM Lee is like, why did you do this?

[00:52:34] Emma: But I guess 15 minutes to go to sleep is not an incredibly long time. It's, that's not like we sometimes hear children who are really ready to drop naps. You take like an hour to go to sleep. So that's, that's something I guess. No, we're not there. We're not there. Okay. So if I was to say to you, okay, Hannah, operation, stop twiddling, let's, let's think about how we can stop this happening.

Let's think about making a line and drawing a line and saying to Callie-Mae, listen, Kelly, may, I've got something to tell you. This is, this is going to be changing. How does it feel to imagine having that conversation with her? 

[00:53:07] Hannah: I don't know if it feels uncomfortable as such. I more just feel like, I guess I haven't tested it, but I more just feel like, how much are you gonna get?

Like, how much is she going to get? I mean, how much is she gonna understand? But I guess I haven't really tested that. And, uh, even though she doesn't say a lot, I, she probably does understand a lot more than, you know, than she can say at this stage. 

[00:53:31] Emma: I think definitely at 20 months, I think. And obviously there are children who have developmentally lots of different phases, but, but you know, if she's got good comprehension and she understands what you're saying and you can give instructions and, and she's, you know, chatting to people at her own level, I think they often understand more than we realize.

And certainly the families that I work with who are changing nursing manners are doing it as young as 15, 16, 17 months. Yeah. So I think it's very likely that you can change things. I think it's, it's about giving yourself permission to do it. Trying. Yeah. And sometimes we don't want to try things 'cause we're scared of other things.

So, you know, the idea about her being very dysregulated or very sad can feel very difficult. Um, obviously Victoria's touched on moments where Arran was, was really sad, but I guess it comes down to where do you want to be in six months time? What do you want to be in three months time? So if the Hannah of February, 2026 could look at you now, you know, in a few weeks time and say, what does she want you to do?

What do you think Hannah of next spring would want you to be doing now? 

[00:54:39] Hannah: Definitely, definitely stopping this. Yeah. I think you're right. It's about the permission and it's a, yeah. Yeah. It's that it's getting past. Do you know I only, there's sometimes that I will offer, um, if she's not asked and I'm not doing a kind of don't offer, don't refuse thing at all.

But she's very like, vocal if she wants milk. So I'm not. Feeding her and being like, Hmm, maybe you want some milk. Let's see. I would say 99% of the time it's, 'cause she's come up, comes up to me and she goes, boobies. I go, okay, cool. So I think it's actually that permission part and finding the way to, yeah, let go of the, I dunno what it would mean for me if, yeah, I dunno.

It's, it's, yeah, what it would mean for me to have the permission to do that. Um, and I think that's all part of like how distracted she was for that period and how difficult it was to feed her and how, yeah, I think it's all part of that and need to somehow. Yeah. Are you 

[00:55:41] Emma: scared 

[00:55:42] Hannah: that she might not want to 

[00:55:43] Emma: feed?

Is that, what's at the heart of it? If you were to stop the twiddling that she might say, well, I won't have a breastfeed. Is that, do you think that's an underlying fear there? 

[00:55:51] Hannah: I don't know. I don't know. I guess I'm kind of, I am kind of nervous for the day that she doesn't want to feed because I think, how was I ideal with anything?

Um, but yeah. I don't know. I think, I suppose I'm, yeah, maybe it isner nervous that she would, I don't think she would actually want to stop feeding, but I, yeah, the worry that what if you don't want to feed? And then it's like it was, and I don't have a way to kind of regulate you and you're all stressed out and unhappy and you won't accept the thing that will make you happy.

[00:56:24] Emma: I mean, it sounds a bit daft, but obviously you can change your mind. I mean, you could have a, a week's focus on, on stopping twiddling, and then if it doesn't feel right and you're worried about it, and the negatives are outweighing the positives, regress. I mean, if you're allowed to do that, people are like, oh no, don't be inconsistent with little people.

I'm sorry. You can make whatever decision you want. And if you change your mind and you decide to go back and allow twiddling again, that's something you can do. But maybe the first step is to have some language for it. So even if she's not saying those words that, that you say those words. So does she know the word, the fingers?

Does she know the word for nipple? And can you explain what she's doing? So, so having the words to say, so, you know, Callie-Mae's having milk and Callie's ma Callie-Mae's fingers are on mommy's body. Callie's ma Callie-Mae's fingers are touching mommy's nipple. And then even just explaining that first for a couple of days before you then start to say, Hmm, I, I think I would like Callie-Mae's fingers to be here instead.

I don't like it when Callie-Mae's fingers are on my nipple. But you have to have the vocabulary first. You can't suddenly say, stop twiddling. Think when she's like, well, well Hell's twiddling. Um, so we have to have the language for it first. And I'm a big fan of role play with dolls and toys and using role play and, and you know, showing how you don't, you know, you are feeding Dolly and Dolly's fingers are on your breast and you go, oh no, Dolly.

Mommy doesn't like that. Mommy doesn't like it when Dolly's hands are on mommy's nipple. Um, and doing a bit of role play as well. Just, just to reinforce the VOC vocabulary, first of all, 

[00:57:57] Hannah: I think she would love, oh my gosh, she would love that. So she is. Obsessed with breastfeeding, anything that has anything that looks like a mouth, any form of stuffed toy.

She's like, um, and she wants me to do it too. Um, which is, yeah, I, yeah. So I do kind of say to her, but when it's getting sore, 'cause sometimes she's she'll pull, which is obviously painful and I will, you know, I do try and stop her and I'll say, oh, that's sore for mommy. I don't like that. If you're gonna keep doing that, we're gonna have to stop having Booby.

And I guess she does. She'll either just, I take her off and she'll either just be hap like content to not have any more milk. Or she'll be, yeah, she'll want to go back on. Um, I think, I dunno, I kind of partly think she's, the nighttime is, there's obviously a comfort thing to it, but I also think she's partly doing it when she is wanting, for some reason she's like, she's wanting to be there, but.

She's kind of gotten past that first, like let down of milk and she's not bored, but do you know what I mean? She's like, I'm having a nice time here, but also I wanna be doing some other stuff at the same time. Yeah. 

[00:59:11] Emma: So it's having the vocabulary. You've already interesting. You, you've already just told me how you talked to her.

You've already said that. You've explained to her when you don't like it and you've explained when it's sore. So you're there already. You just now have to decide how consistent you want to be with that and how much it matters to you and, and creating rules around it. That rules, that makes, makes sense for you and her as, as Victoria did.

So obviously when she's falling asleep, it's a little bit different than walking down the road or going to the park. So you need to have these conversations when she's not falling asleep. Mm-hmm. Play bed times and play night times at other times in the day. And then we need to possibly, I know it didn't necessarily work for Arran, but I think finding on alternative is something to try.

So where will hands be instead? You know, mommy doesn't like hands here, but mommy likes hands here. Um, mommy really likes it when hands are here. And what can the hair be? So it might be that you have a, a toy that you tuck between your breasts and she fiddles with the nose of the toy. So some teddies noses are kind of nly.

Some people, as I said, as Victoria said, some people put stickers on their body and, and there are like puffy stickers and textured stickers and she can fiddle with that. And there are some really cool sensory toys out there that are kind of silicone and squishy and squashy. And if that's, if you might even have a little basket and say at bedtime, do you want to choose what hands will do?

Do you want to take something from the basket that hands will do? You know, I mean, I've had clients who do all sorts of un unusual things. I had one client whose child liked fiddling with bananas. 'cause the end of a banana felt a bit like a nipple. Um, you probably end up getting whacked in the face with a banana in that scenario.

But, but, but saying, first of all, these are the words to describe what you are doing. Second of all, to say mommy doesn't like it, and this is why, and I love what Victoria was said about how when you were a little, tiny baby, baby hands weren't a problem. So we're not saying to them, I've always hated this.

God damn you we're, we're saying it, it changed for mommy. And now you've got bigger hands. You know, mommy's having a rougher time and things need to change. So what will hands do instead? And then whatever we can do to give them agency, giving them a choice. So as Victoria said, they don't necessarily like it if we hold their hand because that feels restrictive.

That feels like we're kind of pinning them down. So getting her to choose where her hands will be. Do you want hands to go here? Or do you want hands to go here? Giving her a choice. And then possibly if she's really in a twiddly mood, you might say, well, you can have count to 10 twiddle. But then we have to stop.

But obviously you need to have the vocabulary to be able to do that. We can have count to 10 and then we stop. And then a big thank you very much for stopping. But I suspect if it's around falling asleep and if it's around being asleep at nighttime, it's going to be about creating a new muscle memory.

Um, and sometimes it might just be stopping for a short time to say, mommy doesn't like this right now. I'm just gonna hold your hand for 10 seconds because mommy's body needs a rest. Okay, you can start again now. But mommy, mommy's body needed a rest. So just doing intermittent stops and then gradually extending those longer and longer.

You mentioned that it's overnight, so she, is it more in the morning when sleep pressure's reducing or is it throughout the night? 

[01:02:17] Hannah: I think, yeah, it can be in that early morning time, um, when she first wakes up in the morning. Like when I would say it's properly morning, do you know, it's like six o'clock or seven o'clock or something.

And I deem that's an acceptable time to wake up. Then actually she's pretty good. She's pretty not interested in twiddling. Then it is more, I think the peak time is when she's going to sleep, when she's in bed and going to sleep that first time. And then, yeah, just overnights in that kind of, I guess like three to five or something maybe.

Was the, is the the, the next kinda challenging time? I think it, I think that like there was a change I think where I, so she, I co-sleep with her, we bed share. Um, and something has changed where I used to, when she would wake up, I used to just be able to go back to sleep while she was feeding and that was fine.

And then I think within the last, last month or so. I found that more difficult and I think that's because then she's starting to twiddle or she's starting to kind of be a bit more like flay when she's waking up and then I, and but she's going like, she will be asleep but she's wanting to do it as she's in, I guess in that kind of light sleep.

[01:03:38] Emma: Yeah. Yeah. Reduce sleep pressure. I mean, if you're telling me that you are not really sleeping from sort of potentially even half three, that sounds like something needs to change Hannah. Yeah. I dunno how you feel for me saying that. 

[01:03:50] Hannah: I know. No, you are totally right. I mean, I will go back to sleep, but, um, it's more because it's not, won't be kind of constant from that time till when we get up, but it's, I suppose I used to be awake.

I used to be awake for less time and now I find it more difficult to get back to sleep because I'm getting that. Yeah. Sensory. Annoyance of twiddling that I can't sleep through that. 

[01:04:14] Emma: Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's probably about creating a new muscle memory for her, creating an alternative. And you might start with something that's nearly nipple shaped and nipple textured and just offering something else instead.

But that does mean you have to be awake enough to to know where it is, the alternative object and to bring it to her. And obviously she needs to know why you're doing that. And then possibly thinking about changing your clothing. So the nipples a bit less accessible as well? 

[01:04:44] Hannah: Yes, I have been trying to think about what can I do, so yeah.

Tried various things that, uh, various and more inaccessible brass that she can't get into, but they're quite dextrous. These little children, they're quite, quite ingenious. 

[01:04:58] Emma: Yeah. So obviously the, the clothing is not the answer. The clothing is a tool to help you in the journey, but the real answer is, is the vocabulary, explaining to her, offering the alternative, and as I said, giving yourself permission to hold that boundary.

Um, Victoria, is there anything you would add listening to, to Hannah's story?

[01:05:18] Victoria: Uh, it just feels like, I don't know, a flashback in just exactly how I felt, basically. No, it's fine. Like you've mentioned a few things, I'm like, oh yeah, like I remember I avoided picking him up from nursery 'cause that was his, like peak time of twiddling.

So if my husband could go, it'd be like, you, you just have to go. 'cause I can save myself another 10 minutes of twiddling. So, yeah, very relatable. But I would say that the stopping of it was nowhere near as difficult as I had imagined ever. If I knew it had how easy it would've been, you know, it was like when it was done, I just, oh, why didn't I do this like three months ago?

You know? Like, I've just suffered this for so long. And yeah, the upset, you know, in the grand scheme of things was fairly, fairly mild. Like it was way worth it. And I think starting small is also like small and slow is fine. You know what, the first thing that we did with Arran was just letting him know that it was sore, and that made a massive difference.

I mean, the first few days, I wasn't actually even stopping him doing it at all. You know, there was no count to 10, it was just stopping whatever activity we were doing. But he could have still unlimited twiddling. He went from kind of two hours a day to 15 minutes a day. You know, even just the idea. And there was, yeah, no upset with that.

So. But yeah, giving yourself permission is, is the, definitely the mo the thing that I found most difficult as well, um, is the fear of the unknown. What if he screams all night? What if we're up all night? Um, but yeah, you can always revert back.

[01:06:56] Emma: Yeah, I think that's important. Giving yourself permission to do that.

Nothing is permanent. And just as I say, you know, what would the Hannah of the future want to do, you want you to do right now? I'd also say, what would the Callie-Mae of the future feel like hearing you say? You know, I'm not really sleeping, I'm just having to stay awake. It's making me genuinely feel sad.

Um, I think if I remember Victoria, one thing I said to you is, you know, if, if Arran knew you were avoiding picking him up from nursery, how would he feel about that? He'd say, my God, I, I'll stop twiddling tomorrow if that's what's going on. Crikey, had no idea it had that much of impact on you. You know, to be fair to the little people, let's let them be kind.

Let's give them an opportunity to be kind. Let's help them to change what they're doing because they don't want to be causing you distress. They don't want to be causing you pain. Even the most gloriously narcissistic little toddler doesn't want the person they love most in the world to be, to be uncomfortable and to be in pain.

And also so often I meet people who say, I'm thinking I might have to end breastfeeding 'cause I can't cope with this anymore. I mean, literally cutting breastfeeding journeys short, you know, several months of not giving their child all those lovely immunological benefits and emotional benefits because they can't get their head around how to stop nursing manners.

I mean, again, a little person would be like, no, crikey, please give me a chance to stop this. Give me a chance to change this. So if I said to you, okay Hannah, you're gonna make a change. What do you think's the first thing you will be doing? And do you feel you've got the capacity to, to make these changes imminently?

[01:08:26] Hannah: Yeah, I do. I think the first thing, um, I think, so I do, like I said, I already talk about how various things feel sore or uncomfortable, but I think yeah, bringing in that, the, the other language about that, about, yeah, calling it twiddling or whatever it is that she's doing that is, that is sore. And I like, I like the idea of giving, obviously you've got to give an alternative.

Um, 'cause I think at the moment, the, at certainly at night, the only thing that will stop it is if I just sit with my hand covering fully covering my other boob, which is not relaxing for me. 

[01:09:00] Emma: Is she really dysregulated when you do that? Does she absolutely flip off? 

[01:09:03] Hannah: Sometimes, yeah, sometimes she does.

Sometimes if she's like already asleep, then that will work and she's okay with that redirection, but she's trying to get to sleep, then that will annoy her. So I think giving her something else to do and talking about what the other thing, 'cause I actually, I don't, I wouldn't mind if she just wants to put her hand.

On me. I just don't want the, the twiddling and the pooling and Yeah. 

[01:09:26] Emma: That, 

[01:09:27] Hannah: yeah. So flat hand 

[01:09:28] Emma: is flat hand is what you can, yeah. Flat. Yeah. Flat hand is good. Fingers not good. Um, like when we're feeding horses. Flat hand. Flat hand. Um, so maybe that's the kind of vocabulary we need. The reason I asked about whether she kind of flips out when you do that is because putting her hand over your nipple without any preparation, without any talking to her about it, if she can cope with that, and it sounds like she often can, she's certainly gonna cope with a version of that with all the preparation and the emotional support and the alternatives.

So she, it sounds like you've already done the scariest thing by putting your hand there and saying no. And now it's gonna be much easier with all, all the preparation and all the alternatives and, and as I sort of touched on before, I think when you do offer something else, it, it, it can be quite valuable to say, do you want A or B?

'cause if you say, do you want this? They'll go, no. But if you say, do you want this or do you want this? Um, with the stuff around, thank you. And mommy's body likes that. And mommy, thank mommy's body says thank you. And nipples say thank you. Um, so she feels really positively about that and it feels like she's doing, you know, giving you a gift as well.

Um, so just thinking about what those alternatives might be. And drilling down into that. 

[01:10:38] Hannah: Yes. 

[01:10:39] Emma: Yeah, 

[01:10:39] Hannah: we've got lots of craft. I I've, yeah. As part of my job, I have lots of craft items, so I might have to craft some things. 

[01:10:47] Emma: I mean, there is the world of crocheted boob. I have a, a house full of knitted and crocheted boobs.

I've also come across people that make a pretend boob. Um, and you can fiddle with that instead. Um, and that ends up being the comfort object that gets taken around, and that gets taken to WGA Mamas, that's a bit more embarrassing, but, um, that, that's also an alternative, literally making a boob. Um, and that really leans into it and explains, you know, exactly what's going on.

Um, yeah. Yeah. So Victoria, just, I realize we're running out of time here, but, um, you mentioned just before we started recording that, that Arran's started a little bit of Pitchiness. Is that, is that right?

[01:11:22] Victoria: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He, um, just over the last few weeks really, he started pinching. I think he finds it, you know, sometimes when toddlers are.

Do something naughty and watch you react. Like throwing toys out the bath. He knows he is not allowed to throw toys out the bath, but he'll look at me, get my attention and throw toys out in the bath. It's kind of that. And then he'll pinch and then this is only whilst he's feeding, he'll pinch and then he'll come off and he says, Arran pinched mommy.

I said, well, mommy doesn't like it when you pinch Arran. So it's kind of, yeah, I think it's kind of a bit of a game for him. Um, I mean, in comparison to twiddling it's nothing. But I would obviously like to, um, not to do. Yeah. So he is doing it very consciously by the sounds of it, just waiting to see what your, what your reaction will be.

[01:12:13] Emma: Yeah. And what's your plan with that?

[01:12:15] Victoria: Well, he, he loves doing stuff with his hands, which is was a big surprise when nothing, none of the other distractions work. Like the necklaces and the stickers and those kind of things. 'cause I really thought something like that would, but he wants to mess about with skin.

Um. Mainly my skin. You know, he's in my armpits a lot of the time, but even like I noticed this weekend, he was like pinching his own tummy, you know, not kind of to her, but he's like grabbing his belly, like rubbing it between his fingers. So it's a skin thing. So I am, this weekend I've started saying, why don't we do piano fingers?

Um, which, you know, is just like, you know, tapping or wiggling his fingers on me, which most of the time works. He feeds out infrequently now and there's no, there's so many other things that he wants to do instead, you know, like reading this book or he's a lot like more easily distracted from it. But yeah, I think, um, I'll probably just approach it in the same way that I did with the twiddling the first time round and just need to be brave enough to set the boundary and keep it really, yeah.

Um, which is just deja vu because is what I struggled with last time. Um, but yeah, he does still try and twiddle, I mean, every feed he's like. Trying to get in my top and I just keep my, I put my hand there and then he moves it. So there's, there's still that bit of muscle memory for him there. Yeah, it's a, it is a sensory thing.

Um, and with the piddly towing, like any opportunity can Teddy twiddle, she doesn't use so much anymore, but certainly after he stopped twiddling the first time round, um, yeah. And it was, anything else allowed to twiddle if he wasn't

[01:13:58] Emma: Oh wow. That's interesting. 

So a little, a little teddy poor was being requested to twiddle instead.

[01:14:02] Victoria: Yeah. Teddy poor is probably more comfortable than a, than a little person for finger. Um, yeah, with the pinching you just need to, you know, set the band. You probably stop him feeding and give him something else to do, which seems to only be satisfied with some other thing on skin. Um, so yeah, little piano fingers, hopefully

[01:14:25] Emma: Yeah.

Will work. I like they do a piano. Fingers. Yeah. Okay, well, ongoing journeys, even when you've conquered it, it doesn't necessarily mean it's all gone away, but, but having that resolution to, to hold those boundaries and look after yourself is super important. So, Hannah, will you let us know how you get on, and probably by the time this episode goes out, which will be in a few weeks time, you'll have an update for us and maybe we, I can put that in my Instagram underneath the episode information.

Um, so yeah, I mean, obviously Hannah, you have every right not to do anything. No, we don't. Just because you're on this episode, it doesn't mean you have to make any changes, but, um, it sounds like you might be ready to make some changes. 

[01:15:05] Hannah: Yeah, I think it's, it's like shifting my brain from, do you know when they're first born, it's like you just need to be responsive and you need to feed them whenever they want, basically, whenever they want to be fed, you know, with some caveats, of course, but, and then it's like that obviously then has to change at some point because now she has nearly two and she's supposed to eat real foods as well as drink milk.

Which is another story, but yeah, it's that I think and somehow like, I just don't feel like my brain has caught up to that. Do you know that it's actually now it's fine to, to say, to give her these other options and say, well, if you can't stop doing that, we're not gonna have maybe at the moment, but we could do this other thing instead.

And that's your choice. Um, I think that's the, like Victoria's saying that permission and that yeah, that feels like the hard part of catching up and actually being like, well she doesn't have milk. That's actually fine at this point because she does, she can eat food and she is a healthy little child.

She doesn't need it in the same way that they need it when they're a baby, a little baby. And that they need it for that nutrition. Like she does. Obviously she does still need it in a lot of other ways. Um, 

[01:16:17] Emma: yeah. 

[01:16:18] Hannah: And probably does take a lot of nutrition from it 'cause she eats like a bird. Um. 

[01:16:23] Emma: That word need, I think is really useful place to end.

I think we can quite often get confused between what they want and what they need. They want to twiddle, they don't need to twiddle. They need to be emotionally regulated. They want to twiddle, but they don't need to twiddle. Um, and, and because it's not a need, it's okay to change it, it's okay to, to take that from them and for them to experience that loss.

That is okay. And yeah, I mean, you've absolutely hit the nail on the head there that that transition from responsive feeding and centering our child and everything's about trying to get 'em to breastfeed, to actually, I matter too. My body matters too. And if they don't feed, that's okay, because holding this boundary is more important.

Um, that's an important place to get to, right? We've gone on super long, so if anyone's carried on to the end of this episode, thank you for sticking with us. I appreciate it. Um, thank you so much, Victoria and Hannah for your time today. I'm incredibly grateful. And, um, if anyone out there is listening to this and struggling with nursing manners, you are not alone.

This is not a little thing we get how big this is and how uncomfortable this can be and how distressing this can be. And you, you absolutely can make changes. Um, yeah. So very best of luck, Hannah. Good luck with your pinching as well, Victoria. And yeah, let us know how you get on.

[01:17:38] Hannah: Thank you.

[01:17:39] Victoria: Thank you.

[01:17:44] Emma: Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett Ibclc and on Twitter at Makes milk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist and leaving a review would be great. As well, get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast.

This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.