Tongue-tied but not for long

Quick word of advice: if your baby is born with a Tongue-tie, ask the hospital to snip it asap. It's the best time to deal with it and avoids anaesthetised operations and speech therapy later on.

As a newborn, tongue-tied Leon was feeding well so the hospital advised to leave it, and see if it 'snapped' or 'stretched'. A few months later our GP eventually referred us to paediatric ENT after we raised our concerns about how it would effect his language learning and noting how there been no 'snapping' or 'stretching' of the frenulum linguae (the extra skin attaching the Tongue to the bottom of the mouth).

At 6 months, we saw the ENT consultant, and reluctant to operate on it- given no current inconvenience to Leon or the feeding - he asked us to come back after Leon turned 1. We were told it was likely to stretch - but reading the word of WikiPedia (reliable source!) it probably wouldn't have changed significantly.

During early gestation (as early as 4 weeks) the lingual frenulum serves as a guide for the forward growth of the tongue. After birth the tip of the tongue continues to elongate, giving the impression of the frenulum retracting, though in reality this has been going on for some time before birth. This is what gives the impression that the frenulums of some previously tongue-tied infants will "stretch" with age and growth. In reality the tongue often just grows beyond the frenulum, although some do also stretch and/or rupture after mild accidents. Many others continue to cause problems throughout life, unless corrected

Now almost 20 months old Leon is saying a few words. At the recent consultation with Mr ENT I listed all the reasons we wanted the snip:
- We're raising him trilingual and although vocalising well, we don't want to make it harder for him to pronounce certain sounds with a tongue-tie
- Socially, we don't want him to be teased for a lisp or unable to stick out his tongue
- More to hubby's concern, he needs full use of his tongue to be be able to 'French Kiss' amongst other things... (I DON'T want to think of my toddler engaging in that kind of stuff, but I remember an emotional plea from a 13 year old girl on a Netmums forum telling how awful it was to have a tongue-tie that she couldn't get a boyfriend and "please deal with your child's tongue-tie if they have on" That stuck with me)

I asked for recommendations on hospitals to approach should we need to do it privately, armed with a short-list of 3 London hospitals found at the Baby Friendly Initiative by UNICEF.

Mr ENT agreed to the operation but I could tell he was reluctant. I suppose it's preferable to avoid surgery on a toddler- particularly if it involves having a general anaesthetic for 15 mins, but I was happy with the outcome. He explained that it will bleed a bit but should scar over quickly ie. No need for stitches. Doesn't sound too bad- but hard to think of a little 20 month old going under for an operation.

All I had to do was sit and wait for the letter with the date. I received the letter.

However, the operation is due in November- TWO days before we have a 12-hour flight to Mexico. Brilliant. I couldn't get through to Mr ENTs secretary on Friday so fingers crossed it will be OK or we'll need to change it for our return...

Breastfeeding

I've really enjoyed breastfeeding the past few months. Only now am I starting to feel tired due to the night-time feeds and sometimes feel as though I have the baby permanently attached to me as he's still feeding every 3 hours. The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months before introducing solids, but our parents' generation introduced them at 4 months... I'll see when he's ready but for now I've started to give him little 'tastes' of other foods as suggested by the Mexican ladies. Up until now he's mainly tried a few drops to the tongue of mexican beans.

French feminist Elisabeth Badinter suggests that breastfeeding is a form of oppression and prevents women from going out and doing what they want to as they need to be constantly with their babe - but has she not heard of expressing? I know what she means though... and I think that the NHS ram it down out throats a bit too much equating Breastfeeding=Good Mother=Good Woman that women go to extreme lengths to do what is deemed best. A local mother is expressing her milk every 2 hours to feed her son as he didn't take to the breast. While I admire her persistence, I believe that she needs to take care of herself as well and not feel bad for not BF. Those that it comes easy to are lucky and I am happy to be one of them. It's just very convenient not to have to wash up bottles and be able to 'whip em out' whenever you need to.

Then there's the bonding :)

For the past few days, Little Leon has started to pause halfway through a feed on one breast then moves his head up and smiles at me! I saw that my mum has written the same thing in my baby album "as if to say Thank You mummy!" and I totally see it now. I thought she may have confused it for a gas smile, but it's a proper huge smile. He's doing it during most feeds now and it's so sweet. I was considering moving on to formula soon as I'm getting a bit tired of BF, but now I've swung right back onto the BF branch. It's lovely!

The only thing I'm not sure about is that I didn't realise how my breast would change to these soft boobs that seem to belong now to my baby... Will they ever become perky again!

Tongue tied

Little Leon was born with a tongue-tie, apart from that he's perfect - he just can't stick his tongue out. No problem with feeding which is why the GP won't refer us to have it snipped - but we WANT to have it snipped! Not because of fears of having a lisp (Jamie Oliver has one and it can be cute!) or to save him problems of kissing later on in life... but mainly because we're raising him to be trilingual and this might make it that bit trickier for him. Also, he wouldn't be able to pronounce his own name easily! Hopefully the GP changes her mind on Monday when we see her next and will refer us due to speech issues.... If not, could anyone recommend a specialist in London area?