Breastfeeding at the Bronx Zoo
 In Jungle World:
I totally cracked up some woman when I shouted out to M, “Look! The baby monkey is getting booby juice!” I tell you, that momma monkey was so tender to her baby, and I am not romanticizing it.Â
And here are J and I later on, also in Jungle World:
J was getting tired since naptime was approaching. I always get so moved when I find myself nursing along with the animals. I think I’m so used to being the only one nursing in any given situation that it feels like such a connection to be part of the natural nursing world.
But then we get back to the real world, at lunch, and this is what I see:
I don’t normally take pictures of bottle-feeding strangers, but I couldn’t help it. I watched this woman as we ate, and she absolutely no interaction with her child aside from holding the bottle. And the baby just stares in an empty way the whole time. After our experience in Jungle World, this stranger’s interaction seemed so bizarre to me.Â
That is so sad, the way the poor baby just stares off with no interstion from mom.
Oh, poor little forlorn baby. I bottle-fed my kid a lot (I was a pumper), but never with such detachment.
There are certainly ways to bottle-feed kids while maintaining as much attachment as possible. This woman, and many that I see, do not.
BTW, good for you putting in the effort to pump! I know from the number of times that I pumped that it can be hard work.
My oldest son wouldn’t breastfeed at all, but even when bottlefeeding him, I treated it like breastfeeding. He was only fed in either my arms or my husbands, facing tummy to tummy (until he got to wiggly to lie down in that way, LOL), and couldn’t just go around feeding himself. I think it’s sad that those parents were missing out on an important bonding moment. We can hope that this was a rare occasion for that mommy/baby.
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