Newborns & feeding
Ten things we tell every new mother about breastfeeding
What we say at the first newborn visit: milk takes days to come in, newborns nurse constantly, wet diapers tell you more than the pump does, and sore nipples usually mean the latch needs a look.
Breastfeeding is natural in the way walking is natural: the ability is built in, and it still has to be learned by two people at once. These are the ten things we find ourselves saying at nearly every first newborn visit.
1. Leave your nipples alone before the birth
Scrubbing or “toughening” them does nothing useful and leaves you sore before you have even started. Skin adapts on its own.
2. Milk takes time to come in
For the first two to four days your body makes colostrum, a small amount of thick, yellow milk that is exactly what a newborn needs. Fuller milk usually arrives between day three and five, later after a cesarean or a difficult birth. If it has not come in by day five, we want to see you and the baby, and we can connect you with a lactation consultant that day.
3. Newborns nurse a lot
Eight to twelve times in 24 hours is normal in the early weeks. A newborn stomach holds an ounce or two, and breast milk digests quickly. Frequent nursing is also how your body learns how much milk to make.
4. Judge supply by diapers, not by the pump
What you can pump says little about what your baby takes at the breast. After day five, six or more wet diapers a day, yellow stools, and a baby who is regaining birth weight by two weeks are the signs that matter. We weigh your baby at every early visit for exactly this reason.
5. Cluster feeding is normal
There will be evenings when the baby wants to nurse every 20 minutes for hours. This is common around one, three and six weeks and again around three and six months, and it passes in a few days. It is not a sign your milk is failing.
6. Pain means the latch needs a look
Some tenderness in the first week is common. Pain that makes you dread the next feed, cracks or bleeding are not, and they almost always come from a shallow latch. Bring the baby in; a latch check takes ten minutes. Expressed milk or purified lanolin on the nipple after feeds helps while the skin heals.
7. Drink and eat
Milk is mostly water. Keep a bottle within reach wherever you nurse and drink to thirst. You do not need a special diet; eat what you ate in pregnancy, and keep taking your prenatal vitamin.
8. Flat or inverted nipples can work
Most babies latch onto the breast, not the nipple, and the tissue changes over the first weeks. When a shield is needed, use it with a lactation consultant so you know when to stop.
9. Decide together, before the birth
There will be a night when you want to stop. Talk with your partner now about what you both want, so that at 3 a.m. the person beside you knows whether to bring water and a pillow or to reach for formula. Either plan is fine; the point is to decide it rested.
10. It gets easier
The first two or three weeks are the hardest part. Most mothers who get through them with support go on to nurse comfortably for as long as they choose. We see breastfed newborns two to three days after they go home, then at two weeks and one month, and you can call between visits.
If breastfeeding is not working, or not what you want, formula-fed babies grow and thrive too. Fed is the goal, and we will help with whichever way you feed your baby.
