breastfeed, feeling drained, especially at night

[nicolejoy]

The chinese place huge importance on confinement. It is said that good confinement can reverse previous health issues, and bad confinement create permanent problems. Because breastfeeding takes effort, it's seen as an impediment to recovery. My mother insisted that I stay lying down 24/7 and sleep most of the time. She didn't even like me carrying baby. I can imagine if a confinement lady lets the woman "work" at breastfeeding, especially on demand, the mother/in-law wouldn't be happy.

My MIL wasn't happy that I didn't do confinement - she's Chinese and I'm white so we come from very different backgrounds. Knowing what I do about confinement though, I think that many of the principles are good, but some of them are also quite bad - depending on what is important to you as a mother. For me, I chose not to get a confinement lady and never regretted that decision. I also did not allow my MIL to "look after me" (she lives in Australia so we just told her when we thought it would be good for her to visit). She was not happy with my choices and let us know - but ultimately, it's not her choice to make. It's ours (mine and my husband's).

 

[evgreen]

It's funny...my mother is local Chinese and she said confinement ladies were not that popular in her day. She says it's an emerging trend and it was traditionally reserved for the wealthy in her day, so when I decided not to have a confinement lady, I didn't get any flack for it. My mom said she had a confinement lady when she had me and resented it. She was never successful at breastfeeding me either. When she had my younger sister though she didn't have a confinement lady and was much more successful at breastfeeding.