I was on telly!

So I was on the Afternoon show today, on RTE, with a group of breastfeeding mothers from Rollercoaster.ie. We were going on for National Breastfeeding Week, we want to try and give a better picture of what breastfeeding is like than the horror stories people circulate about bleeding nipples and loss of freedom.

It was fun, in one way, but we didn't realise that the main part of the feature was going to be Blainaid talking to their resident tv breastfeeding expert and we were just going to be the little examples. So, imagine the frustration of not having a microphone as the 'expert' failed to give any help at all to a woman who rang in trying to get her baby to take a bottle - a question we address all the time on Rc. And all the rest.

Most frustrating was that Blainaid ended the discussion by announcing that breastfeeding is initially SORE, passing it back to the expert, who vaguely and unconvincingly said that it's all about the latch, and you need to get good support.

But how! How do you get support when you've got eight different midwives coming into the room through the day, telling you eight different things. What's a good latch, how do you get it, what if you try and it doesn't work?

Gah! The frustration of not being able to add to that. I think I need my own show.

We were disappointed in how tame it all was - but it's afternoon tv, and at the end of the day, baby steps are good. If you're someone who is completely turned off at the idea of breastfeeding, or scared, or unsure, maybe it's just good to see a group of happy women and sweet babies, who breastfeeding ultimately worked for.

And my other complaint: they promised us lunch! Then demoted it to a plate of sandwiches - then they put them in front of us, and whisked half of us off to makeup, and there was hardly anything left when I got back, so I had a half a sandwich for lunch :( And even my granny said she'd heard the RTE canteen was good!