When I was pregnant with my first son, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I spent a lot of time worrying about how hard it would be and I wanted a stress-free breastfeeding experience. Nothing prepared me like the real life experience of the early stages of breastfeeding. I found a lot of what I learned from books and classes did equip me with simple things to implement to ensure I had a stress-free breastfeeding experience. Now I am in the midst of breastfeeding my second son, the experience is night and day this time around! Why- because I know what to do! And now you will too 🙂 The following tips are what I have found led to a stress-free experience this time around. I can say I truly enjoy the bond I am creating with my son and the parts of breastfeeding that were stressful the first time- while still challenging, are not taking away from the enjoyment I feel of providing my son with natures best food.
Immediate skin to skin after birth is so simple yet one of the most powerful things you can do to start your breastfeeding journey off on the right foot. The reason skin to skin is so crucial is because by placing your naked newborn bare on your chest between your breasts, you are not only creating a connection with your baby that will last a lifetime but you are helping your colostrum flow more easily. Also, newborns are born instinctively to find their mothers breast and begin nursing when left skin to skin immediately after birth. Both my sons latched within the first 30 minutes of birth by insisting on skin to skin immediately after the birth. I delivered both of them via c-section so it was important I made skin to skin a clear part of my birth plan since sometimes during a c-section immediate skin to skin may not be possible. Push for skin to skin as soon as possible after your delivery!
If you follow tip#1 and place your baby skin to skin right after birth, you are setting the baby up to find your breast and latch. Ideally, y0ur baby will migrate to your breast sometime within 30 minutes of the initial skin to skin for that first nursing session! If you deliver via c-section like I did, you could possibly still be in the operating room getting stitched up the first time you baby nurses! Also, don’t forget the first few days of nursing the baby is getting colostrum as your milk has not come in yet so try to make sure you nurse within the first 30 minutes of delivery.
Once your baby latches do not expect the latch to be correct the first time. Proper latch is crucial as if you do not correct it early you will be setting yourself up for some major breastfeeding frustration in the future. Shallow latching (when the baby is sucking the tip of the nipple) will lead to frustrations like cracking and bleeding nipples- OUCH! If you find that nursing your baby is painful you will want to unlatch the baby and have them to re-latch until they get it right. I cannot stress enough how important the latch is to ensure your breastfeeding experience is stress-free. There are tons of videos on YouTube that will demonstrate what a proper latch looks like to help you get it right!
You will hear over and over again that your baby needs to eat every 2-3 hours and at least 8-12 times in a 24 hour period. Feeding your baby frequently is what sends the queue to your body to produce milk which in will do two things for your stress-free breastfeeding experience. 1. It is helping your milk to come in as fast as possible and 2. it is helping to build your milk supply! My tip here is to feed your baby as often as they want to eat even if that means you exceed the 8-12 times in 24 hours. Another thing to note about feeding frequency is in the early days your newborn may sleep through feedings and you DO NOT want to let them do this as skipping feedings is sending the opposite message to your body telling it not to produce as much milk. If your baby sleeps past 3 hours, wake them up to nurse until your supply is established. Continuing to feed on demand is the best thing you can do to establish a good milk supply and having a good supply is what will set you up for the long haul with feeding your baby!
Unless absolutely necessary, keep your pump packed away for at least the first month. Your baby is the most effective way of emptying your breasts and by refraining from pumping at least the first month, you are telling your body to produce milk in the exact frequency and quantity your baby needs! In order to ensure your breastfeeding experience remains stress-free, you want to have a healthy supply of milk so you are not forced to supplement with formula in order to meet your babies feeding demand. Not having to stress out about your baby getting enough to eat is going to make or break whether or not you breastfeed for your desired time frame. After a month, your supply should be established and it is okay to begin a pumping routine if you need to build a stash for returning to work, etc. I’ll talk more about pumping routines in a later post!
I am not a lactation coach by any means but these tips are what I have found to be the most helpful from my personal breastfeeding journey. I learned a lot from lactation consultants and other breastfeeding mamas. Not to mention the countless hours of research I did to help get me through my breastfeeding journey with my first son! By following these simple tips and I am now happily almost 7 weeks into my breastfeeding journey with baby number 2 and things are going great!
What tips have you found to be the most beneficial during your own breastfeeding journey? I would love to hear all about your experience in the comments!
