Tuesday
Mar302010
Nursing at Keyboard (NAK): How to give boob and type too.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
In my delurking post yesterday, quite a few people said that they don't usually comment on my blog because they are nursing at the keyboard (NAK) when they read it. On breastfeeding and other parenting message boards, the acronym NAK is understood to mean: I'll keep this short and I may make typos, because I'm typing it while nursing my child.
When my kids were little, they nursed a lot. A LOT. They were both evening cluster feeders, which meant that my options for the evening were to sit on the couch and watch TV or read a book, or I could NAK. Nursing at the keyboard was often the best choice for me. Television was sometimes too loud and the Internet was just too compelling. But as someone who has mastered the art of typing, trying to type messages one-handed while nursing a baby quickly got old. Something had to be done about it.
So I worked out a system.
I would sit down in my office chair and put a regular pillow on my lap. I would then put a boppy pillow on top of the regular pillow. Then I would push my chair up to the desk so that edge of the boppy pillow was just slightly overlapping with the table and ensure there was no gap between the pillow and the table. Next I would put my baby on the boppy pillow, get him (and later her) into position to nurse. I could then stretch my arms over/around the baby and type at my keyboard. I could switch sides as needed and keep typing (I did better with the baby's head on the left, so usually aimed for that to be where he would fall asleep).
I often spent hours this way in the evening, either doing work, posting on message boards, talking to friends on facebook, and eventually starting this blog. My babies would sleep for stretches on the boppy pillow and nurse as needed. I didn't have to run upstairs to resettle them over and over again because they kept waking up.
Here is a picture of us in that setup:
There is a green coloured regular pillow on my lap, which you can see next to Emma's head poking out from under the boppy pillow. In this picture, I was doing some scrapbooking (which is visible in the picture) and just to the right of the scrapbook (but not visible on the photo) is my computer keyboard. I took this picture when I was chatting online with my friend and former kellymom co-moderator, Lori from Lori's Nursing Necklaces. She asked what I was up to and I said scrapbooking, nursing, and posting on kellymom and was able to immediately download and share the pic with her.
There you have it. I hope you find that useful and I hope that cuts down on the excuses for not jumping into the conversation around here! :)
When my kids were little, they nursed a lot. A LOT. They were both evening cluster feeders, which meant that my options for the evening were to sit on the couch and watch TV or read a book, or I could NAK. Nursing at the keyboard was often the best choice for me. Television was sometimes too loud and the Internet was just too compelling. But as someone who has mastered the art of typing, trying to type messages one-handed while nursing a baby quickly got old. Something had to be done about it.
So I worked out a system.
I would sit down in my office chair and put a regular pillow on my lap. I would then put a boppy pillow on top of the regular pillow. Then I would push my chair up to the desk so that edge of the boppy pillow was just slightly overlapping with the table and ensure there was no gap between the pillow and the table. Next I would put my baby on the boppy pillow, get him (and later her) into position to nurse. I could then stretch my arms over/around the baby and type at my keyboard. I could switch sides as needed and keep typing (I did better with the baby's head on the left, so usually aimed for that to be where he would fall asleep).
I often spent hours this way in the evening, either doing work, posting on message boards, talking to friends on facebook, and eventually starting this blog. My babies would sleep for stretches on the boppy pillow and nurse as needed. I didn't have to run upstairs to resettle them over and over again because they kept waking up.
Here is a picture of us in that setup:
There is a green coloured regular pillow on my lap, which you can see next to Emma's head poking out from under the boppy pillow. In this picture, I was doing some scrapbooking (which is visible in the picture) and just to the right of the scrapbook (but not visible on the photo) is my computer keyboard. I took this picture when I was chatting online with my friend and former kellymom co-moderator, Lori from Lori's Nursing Necklaces. She asked what I was up to and I said scrapbooking, nursing, and posting on kellymom and was able to immediately download and share the pic with her.
There you have it. I hope you find that useful and I hope that cuts down on the excuses for not jumping into the conversation around here! :)
Reader Comments (78)
I spent a LOT of time NAKing with my eldest child. Good times, good times. Life was simpler then... *casts misty eyed rose-goggled peek into past*
Actually, life kind of sucked back then; my husband hadn't gotten the memo about how having kids SHOULD change your life, and he was gone more often than not, either working or at the pub or whatever, and my spending a zillion hours a day on the Net was the only thing standing between me and losing my whole entire mind in the shift from Human Being to Mommy. God, what a horrible period. It's all a miserable exhausted blur now.
Still, I'll never forget a particular message board war about the (undisputed) evils of bottle propping vs. (necessary! feminist! (?)) NAK.
Oh, the internet. What a wonderfully bizarre place. Anyway, I still NAK with kid #4 from time to time, but find it more tiring than I used to. Gittin old sucks, I guess.
NAK On my iPod touch while co-sleeping! Lol.
I don't think I put FAK (feeding at keyboard) on my reply yesterday, but it is usually the case for me. I can type one-handed as fast and most people can type two-handed.
I can only do it with my right hand, though. I think this is because I prefer to feed from my left side and so over time I have developed my typing ability in my right arm only. :)
I don't use a pillow or anything fancy, but it is definitely helpful that our computer chair has arms on it, so I can rest my elbow on the chair arm as I'm feeding. I'm sure a pillow or boppy would have saved me a lot of backaches!
Wow, that's impressive mama!
Word. Attitudes like janetlansbury's are counterproductive because they, like all mommy martyr theories, tend towards the all-or-nothing and make normal, middle of the road mothers feel inadequate (which, if course, is the mommy martyrs' goal).
Similarly, I had to wait until my baby was old enough to navigate the large bosoms himself before I could NAK. Now, sadly, he is old enough to turn around and start typing for me. But there was a wonderful brief time when everything "fell into place" (ha ha).
I too look back on the early months of nonstop breastfeeding with something almost bordering on nostalgia - I mean, I got a lot of great fun reading done during my maternity leave! As well as some good gazing-into-my-newborn's-eyes bonding time. Now if I try to NAK or read while breastfeeding, the kid wants to get involved too, and turns around to type something or rip the book out of my hands. Sigh. When I try to nurse in public (NIP! love that acronym - so descriptive), he's looking around and smiling at people while my boob hangs out. Good times.
I did that too when my babies were smaller. Now my youngest is at a still more challenging phase - the "Mommy's computer mouse is MINE!" phase. Even typing is challenging when everything on the screen keeps moving around.
Ahh, this makes me smile because this is almost exactly what I do. Except my only problem is, my daughter likes to use my arm as a pillow. I usually end up typing one handed or trying to sneak my arm out after she falls asleep.
I also nurse in a wrap and sit on a yoga ball - that makes it much easier to type since I can get right up to the table.
Consider this my delurking too lol, since I wasn't able to before due to a fussy non sleeping baby.
[...] and toast, cream and coffee or little kids and mud puddles. Once you’ve got yourself set up comfortably, it’s easier to stay there with a baby sleeping on you so that you can keep surfing. Nursing [...]
Awesome idea! Much betteer than lifting my leg up to balance her while I type. Brilliant suggestion!
Just because a baby has fallen asleep at the breast doesn't mean that he/she is full. It can also mean that the flow of milk is slow and the baby has grown tired during the session, or is soothed to sleep via sucking. So that is when I take the other hand and do breast compressions during her suck pauses. This ensures she is eating and she sucks better when she tastes the milk (by this time hopefully hindmilk, the fattier version).
However I cannot and do not prevent her from falling asleep. Growing babies need their sleep. This is why sleep-eating is naturally possible for babies, its not a defect.
However, I cannot NAK when doing compressions with my other hand. Please do not mistake a baby's inability to stay awake during a feeding for satiation. This might be why you have to feed them every hour.
Same here. I have to hold one boob for my daughter otherwise it's just too heavy for her to hold with her mouth. I also cant nurse in carriers because I'd then have to drop the thing down to... oh about my knees before she could find the nipple :P
I NAK - and comment - and write blog posts - and email all the time ;-)
thanks for the tip! my back has been killing me because i NAK no handed, but with only a boppy. therefore i'm leaning over to reach my baby's head. i have had to master it, because like one of the other moms said, my son still nurses most of the day when i'm at home (even at nearly 6 months) and he will only sleep on me. so sometimes he isn't even nursing, but just wanting to be close to me to sleep. i freelance and every hour i can work is income. i would be broke if i couldn't do this.
[...] is a skill I am pretty good at… oh and ARE awesome! [...]
Ha! I thought it was just me that had that problem - the need to hold it whilst nursing due to size of my baby feeders! :-)
Glad I'm not the only one.
Ha! I delurked last year and outed myself as a NAK-er. Little did I suspect that I would still often resort to NAK my now-27-month-old, all this time later. How times have changed: now he asks for Peep and the Big Wide World on youtube while he nurses instead of just sleeping there so peacefully :)
I was taking online classes when my second daughter was born. I was finishing up a class and about to start another the day she arrived. It never failed as soon as I sat down to do my schoolwork, she would wake up and want to eat. Just like everything else when dealing with children you learn to cope with the situations at hand.
Ha! I thought I was the only one. :) Actually, I often read blogs from my iPhone (like right now, for instance) and it's kind of a pain to type with my thumbs (I am getting faster though...)!
If the _baby_ doesn't consider breastfeeding to be something more than food, why does the one currently in my nap re-latch on _in his sleep_ every time in the past hour that I've thought about getting up, putting him in his hammock, and doing something else?
With a 3 month-old, a 3 year-old, and a 4 1/2 year-old, and only such household help as hubs can provide in the few hours per day he's not at work (no family closer than 2000 miles), there is almost none of my day that I'm NOT doing some kind of multi-tasking! Many nights, I even have it set up that dishes and/or clothing are being washed while I sleep at night, and food cooking overnight is not unheard-of, either. Janet, if you didn't multi-task while nursing, who did your necessary computer chores, cooking, shopping, vacuuming, etc? I've needed to nurse during all of those other tasks and more. Heck, my first child nursed in the sling while hubs and I ran a tavern!
Sometimes, sure, but I don't think every feed needs to be a bonding experience! That's why breastfeeding is so great. There is an inate closeness to it that you can both enjoy even when you're not staring into each other's eyes. My toddler nurses tons during the day. If I stopped and stared at him each time, I'd never get anything done!
Haha! I work from home writing copy for websites and usually do it all one-handed while NAK. It's the only time I really have to focus.
I offer a slightly different perspective. We can be a mother - sun, moon, earth, etc., *and* a pacifier, though the latter not in the conventional sense of the word. I see it more as the origins of the name "pacifier," as "a soother, a bringer of peace." I'll not be a binky for my children, but a pacifier? Personally, I'd love to offer that to my child/ren.
I am a couple years late, but I just want to say that I'm kinda appalled at the way people are responding to Janet Lansbury. If you even read 1 article of hers, you will see that she is very non judgemental, and takes into consideration the well being of the entire family.To be honest, I *do* think her response here is uncharacteristically sharp but she wasn't rude.
She mentions that we give our undivided attention, and I *do* think that she should have qualified that by saying that if we are feeding and we are not able to do that, then we should let our baby know. It's about respectfully communication/relating to our babies, not sticking them on the boob while we catch up online.
Trust me, I totally get the marathon clusterfeedings- of course you can't spend hours in the evening, every evening staring at you LO, but what I do is just tell my baby 'Okay, mummy is going to catch up on some reading now, have at it!' with a kiss and that was that.
I guess in a way the original article makes it sound like our babies are afterthoughts, so let's just prop them up somewhere.
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Still impossible. My daughter goes wild when she sees the laptop, not to mention seeing it turned on and being used within a few inches of her little wandering hands!
I am definitely going to try this!