Why New Mothers End Up Quitting Breastfeeding

[Treadmillmom]

My great niece was born at 8.23am yesterday morning.
At approx 12pm my nephew is on the phone to his grand mother (my mom).
She over hears the wail of the baby over the phone and asks, 'Why's the baby crying?'
'Oh, she wants the breast grandma'.
'You shouldn't give it to her everytime she cries for it', replies my mother.
What utter b* s**.
Oh so a 3.5 hour old baby should be refused a feed, or what, you'll spoil it?
For Gods sake, why do people come out with such utter tosh?
It made me so cross.

You've got to make sure your latch is good, it's so important. Get help with this from someone with experience of feeding themselves. If baby has a nice deep latch they will get more milk and you will find that feed times will get shorter as the weeks go on because the baby becomes more efficient at milking the breast.

Re: increasing milk supply - just feed on demand. By putting your baby to the breast when he's hungry you're telling your body to make enough milk for him. Also, make sure you are well nourished. Drink lots of water, have three good meals a day and snacks (preferably healthy ones - fruit, cereal, cheese, etc), if you feel hungry between meals. Growth spurts are challenging, but your body will make enough milk if you let him suckle whenever he needs to. Don't watch the clock - if you only feed him every X hours you won't make enough milk. Ignore advice to 'get him on a schedule' and only feed when 'it's time'. That's utter BS!

so glad i found this thread today. dd is 4 weeks old and feeding every 2 hours in the day. Then from 4 or 5 o'clock she often feeds hourly until 11 o'clock (is this cluster feeding?) and then i've had several nights where she has then slept for 5 hours woke for a quick feed then gone back to sleep for another 3 hours. i was questionning my bfing whether i was making enough milk, etc? DH is supportive and my mum bf me so understands the difficulties. ~However mil is less supportive and i always feel like she is waving a bottle of formula as if i'm not doing a good enough job. bf ds for 7 months, successfully so i know i can do it. just need to develop a thicker skin to ignore her comments.

flowerfairy - sounds like you're doing a great job

Thanks juneau. Am feeling much happier today as well because dd got weighed by hv and she'd put on 1lb and 10 oz in a fortnight!!!