Plan to breast feed - what do I need?

[geekygiraffe]

I plan to breastfeed DC1 (not due til Feb, but feeling curious!) - what do I need in terms of bottles, etc? DH wants to feed the baby too.
Is it also worth stocking up on formula just in case I can't feed for any reason? What will I need for that?
I know nothing, so any advice much apppreciated.

You will need:

A breast, or ideally two
Nursing bras
Breast pads - washable or disposable

You might like:

A BF cushion
Some Lansinoh lotion for sore nipples
A breast pump
Nursing tops
A shawl or other arrangement for discreet BF

Personally I only needed the breasts and the bras. I wouldn't waste money on loads of things you might not need. You can buy them if/when the need arises...as with formula, which you can buy more or less anywhere.

Tits and a baby.

Seriously though, ahem, nursing bra, and nipple cream.

Most important thing to have is GOOD SUPPORT from a breastfeeding organisation. Sadly, a lot of hcps know flip all aboiut it. Also mayube try to spend some time with bfers before you have a go yourself. Mn is a handy tool too.

I've one ffed kids and one bf and once you get through the first few weeks, the bfing is MILES easier and really useful for all kinds of things, like calming them down.

Very best of luck.

I wouldn't bother getting any formula (although I know others will probably disagree).
I did struggle with breastfeeding to start with, but as it's a case of "supply and demand", it doesn't really do any favours if you give formula, if you see what I mean?

So if you plan on breastfeeding, I would say that the "starter pack" should contain:

1. breasts
2. a baby

and that's all! Tuck yourself up in bed with your baby (brrr February!) and learn how to do it together.

(You might need some breast pads and some muslins/cloths too)

Congratulations and good luck!

YY, nicky is absolutely right! Get to know where your local BF support group meets before the baby comes, and you will know where to go to ask for help.

Agree with above posters.

Your DH might indeed want to feed the baby, but that would entail the faff of sterilising and expressing which just takes up more time for you. Far better for him to do other things to help such as bath time, nappies, cleaning, cooking etc. IMO father's don't need to give a baby a bottle in order to bond with the baby.

I'd say some knowledge of what to expect would be useful and kellymom.com is your best place for this. Also worth a read is Kate Evans' 'Food of Love'.

See if you can get along to a bf group before hand and make some contacts.

Support before you give birth, a phone number to call if it doesn't go well.

your DH can make you tea - That is a good way for him to help to feed the baby. Giving bottles can cause problems with BF.

I'd put the breastfeeding helpline numbers in your phone so you don't have to look them up when you need advice and so you'll have them in the hospital.

I wouldn't buy a pump or bottles in advance as you may not end up needing them and if you do, your DH can go out and buy them. Just make sure he knows where to find them (not that it's difficult, supermarkets and Boots etc have them).

Personally I wouldn't get any formula in as it can be easy when you're very tired to give them some and regret it later, but I know some people think it's a good idea to have it in.

At least one but no more than 2 nursing bras as you won't know what fits and is comfy until you've got going with bf so it can be a waste of money to buy in advance

What really helped me was reading this board for ages while pg, so I felt I knew a fair bit when I started. Second getting the numbers of support lines ready before birth - I've been lucky enough not to need to call, but I had them on hand just in case.

I had, 2 x bras, lansinoh cream and a bf pillow (both given by a lovely friend who doesn't need them any more) oh and a baby [hgrin]. We have since bougth a pump and bottles but not for about 5 weeks.

I see that 'breasts and a baby' has been done! :)

mothercare do a very useful nursing top which pulls down at the top but still then covers your post pregnancy belly. Very very handy. You might want to get dp to do some reading on bf as well because he'll need to support you and you don't want him suggesting a bottle at the first hurdle.

We didn't do an expressed feed until 5 or 6 weeks to prevent nipple confusion and there was plenty of time to work out all that stuff as we went along.

Definitely supportive partner.

And i would say buy in some Lansinoh (well just the one tube, it's rare for anyone to finish it!) beforehand. Bung it on even if your nipples aren't that sore, it helps :)

re practicalities of feeding, you might consider some 'belly bands' to help cover the inevitable tummy you want to hide when lifting your top to feed. esp in Feb when it will be freezing!

make sure you don't plan to do too much in the first few days so you can practice with all the faffing about at home in peace :)

Unless you live in somewhere very rural with no 24hour Tescos for miles and miles, I wouldn't stock up on anything. I didn't need breastpads, I didn't need nipple cream, I didn't need nursing tops. Loads of stuff that you can save money on it you wait and see.

Personally, what I would spend the money on is an insulated mug for tea, and some DVDs of things that you've always wanted to watch. Long feeds when the baby is still getting the hang of it are much easier with a cup of tea, a pint of water, some biscuits and the phone to hand, and something fun on TV. :)

Lansinoh, muslins, remote controls, good headphones with a long lead to connect to tv for late night tv in bedroom. A bedside cot for same - so much easier to pick up and put baby down in there. Of course it's not essential but it does make life easier. A good feeding station downstairs for daytimes too - phone, remote control, place for cup of tea and tissues and muslins.

It's an excellent idea to have bf helpline phone numbers in place and in your phone beforehand - it's hard to believe beforehand but really you can be so tired and overwhelmed and short of time with a newborn, even going and finding a piece of paper or looking things up online can be hard to do. If you do have any problems, you might find you want to get the baby's latch checked - if you know where your town's bf clinics are in advance, and when they're open, that can be a huge help too.

My dh didn't do any feeds for either of mine till they went to nursery and we had to get them used to drinking cups, but I hardly changed a single nappy early on - winding and nappy changing and putting food by me were all his department. He bonded very well with his children, feeds from him really weren't essential.

Thank you - this is SO useful! Going to stick with the boobs, baby, a couple of pads and bras option.

Great advice above.

I second that DH doesn't need to do feeds to bond. Especially not for the first six weeks or so which are supposed to be important for establishing supply and avoiding nipple confusion. (Tbh if DH had suggested this I'd have kicked him out till he got his ego in check [hsmile] )

Hang out on here to pick up general info. It will be your greatest weapon.

February is a lovely time to have a baby imo (and very limited experience ) Good luck! [hgrin]

Good painkillers to get you through the first couple of weeks - it is a total lie that if you're doing it right it doesn't hurt! I only got through the first ten days by taking painkillers every 4 hours to deal with the agony of DS latching on.

Muslins or other cloths to mop up sick - DD possets (and sometimes properly chucks up) after practically every feed.

I have a basket of "essentials" (book, phone, tv remote, bottle of water, etc - included lansinoh and painkillers at first too) so I have a sort of mobile nursing station I can cart easily round the house, otherwise (esp. once DH had gone back to work) I would find myself stuck on the sofa unable to reach anything...

Great advice here.

And I can honestly say that it didn't hurt me one bit!

You need more muslins than you think.

I would reccomend reading The Politics of Breastfeeding. Its not an instruction manual but it is inspiring and I think it made a big difference for me. I gave up after 2 weeks with ds1, read it when I was pg with ds2 and still feeding him at 20 months.

I would also agree with other posters that anybody else wanting to bottlefeed the baby should be told no. It makes things harder for mother and baby to an unreasonable extent at a time when the mother is already tired.

I would get an insulated mug.

Breasts
Nursing bra (I would recommend buying a couple of sleep ones to start with and then buying more when baby is a few weeks old - the ones I was measured for in john lewis when 38 weeks pregnant did not fit and were unwearable)
Breast pads - just buy one box of disposable ones to start with, you might not even need them.
the phone number of someone in RL to help

re: painkillers - it hurt when i fed but not in nipples - hurt as womb was contracting, honestly was more painful than giving birth for first few days although found that taking both ibubrofen and paracetamol made it more manageable. Never needed nipple cream. Or bottles. Or formula.

Used pump from around 6 weeks for occasional bottle (ie if going out) too much hassle for DH to give bottle if i was in. Made a point of DH doing bathtime, massage etc etc. No need to feed for bonding.

And lots of CAKE also recommend getting recordable freeview box and recording lots of things you want to watch in advance. Started doing this at 30 weeks and meant I always had something I actually wanted to watch when I sat down to feed.

Please don't get the formula, if you are stressing one night it would be too easy to give it to the baby, especially if your DH is persuading you.

You also don't need bottles either. I would wait and see how it goes, then if you do decide to start to express you can buy a pump and bottles later. If you do decide to swap to formula then get it once you've made up your mind.

Bfing bras - see if your local NCT offers a bra fitting service.

Numbers of any local bfing counsellors and the numbers of the bfing helplines.

Details of all the local bfing groups, try your local Baby Cafe, Children's Centre, La Leche League, NCT and ABM or ask your MW for details. You can start going to most of these groups before the baby arrives so you will have a good network of friends when baby gets here.

A couple of vest tops and cardigans for feeding.

Agree with the cake [hgrin]. DC1 was such an enthusiastic feeder that by 3 months I was under my pre-pregnancy weight and having to eat loads just to maintain.

and you could get your partner to read this

in theory nothing
but a nursing pillow and lansinoh cream are helpfull and also the support others have already posted.
good luck!

I found the support from other women who had BF invaluable - many of them were older women, friends Mums etc. Not that I needed telling what to do as such, but they were just a lovely constant source of solid, loving and knowledgable support.

Otherwise yes just boobs & baby & some nipple cream & a couple of good feeling bras. Camomile and fennel tea were also great. Vest tops useful.

All the above is great advice. I'd definitely recommend attending any kind of breastfeeding support group that's on offer, getting to know people whilst pregnant and seeing if you can get the number of both breastfeeding counsellors/lactation consultants AND numbers of breastfeeding mothers too. Anyone that can support you, ideally someone you can phone at 3am if you're in desperate need of advice, and someone wholly supportive of breastfeeding.

Also, if you can develop a really good knowledge of breastfeeding and what you may need to do (i.e. feed on demand, no dummies, bottles in the early days, maybe co-sleep) then you can feel confident in telling people like midwives or health visitors that the information they (may) give you is actually wrong and detrimental to establishing breastfeeding. For example, when DD was newborn and we were still in hospital, a midwife told me to give her a dummy - I told her that doing that was not helpful to establishing breastfeeding. She probably wasn't a great fan of mine, but at least she didn't undermine my feeding method.

Good luck with it all!

I was talking to a mum friend yesterday, geekgiraffe about how we don't know anyone who uses formula in our group of 20+ new mums. Now, we're in a very middle class town near New York City, but we kept on prodding at what we'd had that made it possible in the early weeks, when it's make-or-break in terms of establishing breastfeeding. And we kept on coming back to the same things: information, support, and time.
Information pre-birth: I got myself informed and I got DH informed. Reading the politics of breastfeeding made me SO determined to do it, and reading The Food of Love made it seem like it would be possible and maybe even a lovely thing to do. I recommend both but DEFINITELY The Food Of Love as it's more 'how-to' which might be more helpful for you at this stage. And your DH/Partner might read it, mine did and that was invaluable.

Support after birth came in three types: a lactation consultant when things were really going wrong around days 3-5 and one running our new mum's group at a nearby hospital who took drop-in appointments at any time (she's a godsend), MN whenever I had a 'argh!' question/need to rant in the middle of the night, and most importantly of all, my DH.

Get phone numbers, get group meeting times/places of LLL or baby cafes - get them all on your fridge now. But most of all, get your Significant Other onboard and get him/her informed.
My DH and I talked about it a lot, he was as committed to breastfeeding as I was, and knew enough about how it works to NOT suggest just giving DS a bottle to give me a break, knew enough to tell my mother to back off a bit when she said things like 'surely the baby can't be hungry again', knew to bring me a drink and a snack and the remote when DS settled in for clusterfeeds, knew to give me hugs and reassure me that things were going great and I was being amazing, knew to take the baby away for nappy changes/walks to give me a break and clear my head a bit when I'd had a tough few hours of constant feeding...and knew that I wasn't going to be putting loads of washing on, or making dinner, for any time soon after the birth, so he was going to have to.
Basically, if I hadn't had a partner who got why it mattered to me and was willing to help in all these ways, I think I'd have opted for bottles a few times in the past three months. Now we're going strong and I love it, but DH deliberately let me BF exclusively for the first 5 weeks (even though he was dying to give a bottle) because he knew about nipple confusion, and when he realised that expressing was a bit of a faff, he found other ways to bond with our baby. In fact, because of the games he plays with DS, and the time they spend staring at each other over the changing table, DH got DS's first smile AND first giggle...

Finally, time. We had time off work (and I hope you do, too), we had time off housework, and we had time to sit and feed, feed, feed when we needed to. Lansinoh is GREAT and I love my "my brest friend" feeding pillow, and if you want to express for the odd bottle I like my medela harmony handpump - but frankly, if you have information, support, and time, then you'll be grand. Support is the key, I reckon.

PS sorry it became a novel!