Breastfeeding as mothering

Here on this message board, we do a lot of talking about producing milk, but not that much about nurturing at the breast, which is just as important. When I was nursing my kids, there was a lot less available/known about to help adoptive moms produce milk. Nursing with the Lact-Aid was the only thing that stimulated a significant amount of milk, for most of us. Because of that, I think it was a little easier to think about the benefits of just having a baby at the breast, regardless of whether we needed to supplement a little or a lot. It's great that most are able to offer their babies more milk, now, but I think the value of nurturing at the breast sometimes gets overlooked. I hope that those of you who are experienced with breastfeeding will share some of what you felt were advantages to it.Today, I was taking care of my grandson and he was really fussy. He didn't want his bottle, and I couldn't get him to calm down. My son and I traded off walk around and bouncing him, which only kept him down to a whimper. I wished I could nurse him! One of the things I loved about nursing was that I could almost always calm them down, that way. Specifically, with Thomas, there was a time when he was ten months old that he started screaming and I just couldn't get him to settle down and nurse. It was the first time that had ever happened, so I knew there had to be something really wrong. I looked him over and over until, finally, I noticed what looked like a fine hair in his eye. I noticed that it didn't move when he blinked, so I took him to the clinic. He had a torn cornea! We think he must have done it with his fingernail. The nurse-practitioner put some anesthetic drops and antibiotic drops in it and a huge bandage that almost covered the whole side of his face. He felt much better, but nursed a lot over the next 20 hours, which was about the only way I could keep him from pulling the bandages off. Had it not been for the fact that it was so odd for him not to calm down to nurse, it would have taken a lot longer to realize that something was really wrong.Another thing I loved about it was that, once they were started nursing, I had a free hand to hold their little hand, stroke them, put my arm around another child, etc.. It is much more difficult to do any of that with a bottle. Breastfeeding really is more than just milk!