10-Minute Crash Course in Breastfeeding
The baby has exited your body. Or, possibly, you are mid-labour and just realized once the baby exits you will be expected to feed them…
Here’s what you need to know.
Your body knows what to do.
Your body has been readying itself to make milk since before you even posted on social media that you were expecting.
The placenta has been telling your body “Hold your horses, the baby is still INSIDE!” but once the placenta is gone, there is no guard at the gate, and your body will start making milk.
So far, you haven’t had to lift a finger.
NO ONE has a full milk supply on Day 1
Parents are often alarmed to discover that they have “no milk” for the first couple of days. This isn’t true.
Colostrum (the sticky, thick, “liquid gold”) is the first milk, and babies only need a tiny bit those first days. So, your body doesn’t make much but its full of antibodies, live cells, and nutrition perfectly evolved to be baby’s first food.
Mature milk (thinner, white) comes in after 2-5 days of feeding baby and expressing colostrum. People call the transition from colostrum to “milk” as your milk “coming in”. Think of this as a progression from colostrum, not a completely different liquid.
Your colostrum is enough. It is enough to hydrate baby, keep their blood sugars stabilized, protect them from infection, encourage those important first poops and seal their gut.
If baby “can’t get any milk”, you can try hand expressing the colostrum, see below.
More milk out = More milk in
Bodies are smart, they have evolved some really good systems over the last eleventy billion years.
Your body isn’t going to waste calories making milk unless there is a need. So in order to show your body that you need it to make more milk, you have to show it that you used the milk (or colostrum) it had.
Frequent and complete emptying of the ta-tas is ESSENTIAL to making milk.
Fuller breasts make less milk: the body gets a message that it shouldn’t have made so much. So, especially for the first few weeks, frequent emptying of the breasts shows your body what you are expecting it to do.
I know you are tired, mama, but in the first 1-3 days you’ll need to keep removing the colostrum from your breasts 8 - 12 times per 24 hour period. Baby may do a great job from the start, or they may need some help.
That’s ok!
Hand express drops of colostrum onto a spoon and let baby lap it up. Do it as often as you can but don’t drive yourself to exhaustion.
Ask the nurse at the hospital for some clean spoons or sterile syringes to collect the colostrum.
So… like… how do you actually do the breastfeeding?
So glad you asked.
Get baby down to their diaper. Take your shirt off and snuggle baby on your chest (you can throw a blanket over the two of you). This is called “skin-to-skin”, or “kangaroo care” and is the perfect way to calm baby, get them interested in waking up enough to feed, and let them show you when they are hungry. It also just feels so delicious to snuggle a nekkid baby.
Bring baby’s head close to your breast, and roll them on to their side so their tummy is against yours. Wrap baby around your body, almost horizontally across your chest if that feels good. You want to be close close close.
Support baby through the neck and shoulders with one hand (preferably the opposite one from the side you are nursing on) and position them at the breast so that their nose is level with your nipple. This is called “sniffing posture” and gets baby to open their mouth wide to latch and tip their head back a bit.
With the hand that is on the same side as the breast you are feeding on, grasp your boob with thumb on top and fingers below the areola, to make a “bulge” of tissue for baby to latch on to.
Wait for baby to stop farting around, see them open up wide and support them through the shoulder blades to latch on. It’s normal for a new baby to bob their head, shake it back and forth, and/or take a few tries to actually latch. They are new at this, too!
How do I know that they are getting enough?
In the first few days, we can judge how much baby is getting by looking at their output (a nice way to say diaper contents). If they are pooing and peeing then there must be something going in, right?
Offer the breast frequently, at least every three hours, and watch for your infant swallowing to ensure they are drinking. Express some drops of colostrum onto a spoon and give that to your baby if you aren’t seeing good drinking at the breast.
Most babies lose up to 10% of their weight before they start gaining, so in those first couple of days just feed-feed-feed and count the pees and poops. Your hospital will likely give you a chart to record these.
And then what?
If your hospital has a Lactation Consultant, ask to be introduced to them so that you have someone to check baby’s latch and answer any questions you may have.
If your hospital does not have an LC, then consider finding a local LC who will visit you in the hospital, or ask your nurses to recommend some free resources in your area that can help.
