Here's what I overheard from another room a few nights ago, when my husband was reading my son the book Babar and His Children (1938):
Husband: "Every week Dr. Capoulosse puts the babies in his big scale and weighs them. One day he says to Celeste: 'Your Majesty, the babies aren't gaining fast enough any more. You must supplement their feedings with...'"
Son: What? What?
Husband: Well, this is strange. They're saying that the mama elephant needs to feed the babies six bottles of milk from a cow with a tablespoon of honey. Where should they be getting their food?
Son: From their mama.
Husband: Right. I don't understand this.
Son: Me neither.
I tried not to laugh from the other room. The interesting thing here is that the mother wasn't already feeding cow's milk, which implies that she had actually been nursing them. So, in a way, I suppose that this wasn't as bad as it could have been, at least for 1938. Why they weren't gaining well is another issue, I suppose. Maybe they were using outdated elephant growth charts?
Want to get email updates from the Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog? Subscribe here. Want an RSS feed? Subscribe here. Want to subscribe to our breastfeeding podcasts on iTunes? Click here.
