How long til your milk came in? What to do with newborn til it does?

[Miffster]

Hiya

Am 8 weeks away from having first baby. Intending to BF. No sign of colostrum appearing yet, whereas some other women at my stage have started leaking so am wondering

a) when did your colostrum start to appear? Last weeks of pregnancy? (if so, can you remember when?) Straight after birth?
b) When did your milk come in?
c) Are all the tales about milk coming in and engorgement being painful and hormones making you horribly weepy true?

Am worried that it make take several days for me to be able to feed my newborn son - in which case, what do I do whilst I wait for the milk to turn up?

He may be late and come at Christmas, when shops are mostly shut, and midwives/ BF counsellors and help thin on ground so it would be good to have some kind of emergency plan in reserve.

Should I get some emergency made-up feed and a bottle just in case? Am worrying about him screaming the place down and being hungry, poor little thing.

Am planning a HB by the way, so 'hang around in hospital til feeding is established' probably won't apply as a solution.

Cheers for your thoughts

The concept of bed rest postpartum or babymoon does contradict the NICE guidelines on preventing deep vein thrombosis and PE, which is still a major cause of maternal mortality. The NICE guidelines are to keep active. So be v careful.

See National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (2010) CG 92 Venous thromboembolism: reducing the risk. London: NICE. Available from www.nice.org.uk/CG92

a) when did your colostrum start to appear? Last weeks of pregnancy? With ds about 14wks, with dd 36wks.
b) When did your milk come in? day 2 or 3 both times
c) Are all the tales about milk coming in and engorgement being painful and hormones making you horribly weepy true? no to the engorgement in my case, hormones making you weepy yes, yes and yes again

Am worried that it make take several days for me to be able to feed my newborn son - in which case, what do I do whilst I wait for the milk to turn up? you feed and feed and feed and feed to stimulate supply

He may be late and come at Christmas, when shops are mostly shut, and midwives/ BF counsellors and help thin on ground so it would be good to have some kind of emergency plan in reserve. I would have stuff in but bf councellors are on standby, i rang one at 3am on boxing day!!!!

Miffster, contact your Health visitor to find the local bf groups.

1. Didn't leak during pg. Colostrum was there from birth.
2. Milk came in on day 2 or 3 IIRC.
3. Engorgement was pretty uncomfortable but no worse than the sore breasts I had during pregnancy (although it felt very different).

There was a lot less weepy hormonalness than DH and I expected - that started at around 4/5 weeks, I think, but was related to sleep issues, not feeding ones!

If it takes a while for your milk to arrive, keep feeding on demand. He'll get the colostrum until your milk comes in, and the more he suckles the faster your milk is likely to arrive.

A paediatrician friend in our NCT group said that the first few days of life is the only time when the brain will (happily) function without regular/substantial supplies of glucose.

Definitely agree with having some Lansinoh cream on hand ready. Also breast pads (put some cream on the pad to stop it sticking to your nipple) and a decent soft sleep bra so you can wear the pads at night. I got mine from JojoMamanBebe and they were sized small/medium/large rather than by exact size, so you can get one ahead of time. I wish I had!

The babymooning plan sounds brilliant.

Your midwife should be able to tell you about bf groups - we had one that ran in my local health centre.

No leaking for me.

It took up to 5 days for my milk to come in especially with dc4 .It was always tough,but they kept latching on.I never used a bottle.
(however a dummy was useful during this period.I never used them beyond 3 months, no problem)

I get painfully engorged.Cold cabbage leaves helped not a pretty site.

With ever child it took 10 days to start to get really established and some.It is worth all the effort.My mum helped me throught it.I have gone on to breastfeed with great ease.For up to 2 years for all my dc. Comforting them when they are sick or teething it has been a great boon.I can also eat whatever I want while always returning to my normal size 8/10 In fact dh laughs and says that I wanted dc4 so that i could eat whatever I want for 2 more years.

If you need support come on here.

Good luck and enjoy.

Brilliant, will do.
I probably won't be in bed 24/7 and at risk of DVT, I will get up to go to the loo and stuff and may even out baby in sling and go for a small walk. It's a good point though. The general idea is to lie around in a sarong with the radiator turned up to tropical, either in bed or on a sofa. And no visitors for at least a week.

God, I really hope the birth goes all right and I can do the nonstop feeding thing at home and not get stuck in a grim post natal ward, or worse, have the poor baby taken away and put in the special care unit.

Have just ordered Lansinoh from Mothercare online.:)

I planned a home birth too, dreaded the thought of having to stay in overnight at hospital - when it came to it I had to stay on the postnatal ward for days though. Really wasn't as bad as I had imagined (though coming home was such a relief!).

Miffster, just a word of advice--try not to be too rigid about what you expect from the birth. A post-natal ward won't necessarily be grim, and even if it is, you're not there very long. My personal opinion is that every birth that ends with the mother and baby alive and well is a success! All how you look at it really.

It will be lovely if you get the home birth you want and it is the experience you expect. I'm just saying....it won't be the end of the world if you go to hospital or have an EMCS. You still get a baby, the birth is just the very beginning.

My post-natal ward was quite nice, camraderie of the aching and sleep deprived, all in a state of shock/wonder 'Wow, a baby came out of me!'

I'm sure you don't exactly mean this Miffster, but hope you will re-think about the radiator turned up to tropical bit - and check the temperatures that are ideal and safe for a newborn, tropical isn't featured I think!
16-20 degrees C I think.

Yes, I had a great experience of the postnatal ward last time. I hardly wanted to go home...

Yes, the whole birth experience bit is really a very short time in the lifetime you hope to have with your little one.

a) I never noticed any beforehand with either DC, and couldn't express any when I tried. It was there when it was needed though.

b) Day 3 both times I think

c) I had slight engorgement which was mildly uncomfortable and easily sorted with a little hand expressing. Yes I got the three day blues.

Babies are born with reserves that should last them until the milk comes in. If colostrum wasn't enough then we'd have evolved something different by now. Baby may well scream the place down, but it's almost certainly not just because s/he's hungry. Frequent nursing is what they need in the first few days, not a bottle. NB It's known as nursing, not just feeding, for a good reason.

Those are wise words YanknCock. And I know that the baby being all right is the most important thing.
Unfortunately I am bordering on phobic about hospitals, even the smell makes me sick (long backstory, won't go into it here). Historically totally unable to sleep or switch off from 'alert' if there are strangers around me,(can't sleep at all on planes, for example) - so I will basically do anything to avoid going into a hospital ward as a patient. Even attempting to give birth at home without pain killing drugs.

Although I think if it comes to the very worst case scenario, and I transfer it is possible to throw money at the problem and buy the use of a private room on the ward. Or discharge myself early and just leg it.

The PN wards in the Hackney hospital where I'd be taken in an emergency are, unfortunately, grim. There are threads on here about how grim they are and when I did the tour recently, the midwife admitted that they were still grim.

But hopefully the hb will go all right.
There are so many things to worry about.
But worrying will not achieve anything I guess. All I can do is get info, prepare where I can, and try to stay hopeful.

Yes google "breastfeeding" and your nearest town, or county. Or if you feel ok posting your vague location on here then someone might know. Sometimes the details of the groups aren't online. Your local children's centre might run a group and there might be a La Leche League group nearby. Also your local NCT branch might run something. There's another national organisation - baby cafe, I think?

Re colostrum and milk coming in - you WILL have colostrum when your baby is born. It doesn't matter if you've never leaked, it's there. Your milk coming in just refers to the white stuff which is more natural to think of as milk. The colostrum is in small amounts but it's very very nutritious, and a newborn's tummy is so tiny that it really does fill them up.

Your milk coming in might be a bit sore but it happens anyway - if you are breastfeeding at least you can feed the baby for some immediate relief! The hormonal bit is not much fun, but you will be fine, it sounds like you have lovely supportive people around you!

You could get a copy of the book "The Food Of Love" before you have the baby, it's a lovely little book and very helpful and reassuring.

Thanks again everyone.

Am going to go to bed and try to stop stressing.

The advice here has been ace.

a) My colostrum started to appear around week 36 I think. I never actually leaked but when I squeezed my nipples a small amount of colostrum came out.

b) my milk started to come in around day 3.

c) despite having lots of milk and a very fast let down, I was never engorged and have never ever experienced painful engorgement. I think that I felt a little weepy a few days after the birth but you have to remember that you are not only hormonal, but shattered too.

My DD did not feed until day 4 and we stayed in the hospital an extra night until she did feed. You don't have to worry about this too much - your baby's tummy will be tiny and all he/she will need is tiny amounts of colostrum, which you can feed to him naturally at the breast or with a small cup or syringe if latching on is difficult. My DD would not latch on at all initially, she just wasn't interested. I fed her colostrum via a small syringe and a cup until she did eventually latch on. You will not need to feed your DC formula in these early days unless there is a medical reason. Fortunately I was well supported by midwives in hospital and at no point was formula mentioned. I was supported to hand express and to keep trying to latch my DD on.

Re: post natal wards. I had a fantastic experience post birth. I really enjoyed the 4 days I spent in hospital after the birth of my DD. I was supported to breastfeed and it was a lovely atmosphere.