First days breastfeeding

[shandybass]

I'm 38 weeks pg at the moment and so preparing for birth. What I'm wondering is whether in the first days, before you're milk comes in, and there's only a tiny amount of colostrum, is it advisable to put the baby to your breast whenever they are crying, rooting etc. That is even though they're not getting anything.

The reason I ask is that this is baby no 3 for me and although I have successfully breastfed before I remember the initial days as the baby constantly being on my breast and making my breasts immediately sore, which has made for a bad start both times.

I hope this makes sense, advice needed for a better start.

Yes advice is to put baby to the breast at any opportunity really. If you're sore, you would need to get positioning and latch checked. They are getting something - colostrum!
Good luck for the birth :)

Yes yes yes to putting your baby to the breast as often as possible. Am not a qualified BF-expert but have fed two babies and from the top of my head the benefits of offering the breast often to a very newborn are:

• Stimulates your milk supply to come in a few days later

• Provides huge comfort to a very newborn who has had the huge shock of birth / being in the big wide world

*Provides colostrum (even those tiny drops are fantastic). I imagine that a newborn is getting at least a bit of colostrum each time you feed - maybe someone else with more knowledge than me knows?

*BF helps with the contraction of your womb

*I'm sure there's something about lots of good hormones being produced each time you BF (er, can't quite remember but I'm sure someone else can!)

So it's not the case that your baby "isn't getting anything" - they are getting loads and loads. And BF is about more than nutrition.

This link is very helpful about the first weeks.

Even putting your baby to your breast v frequently in the early days needn't necessarily / inevitably make your nipples sore (I did this with both DDs and no sore nipples). Probably worth getting some RL support from someone qualified as soon as your DC3 is born just to be sure the latch etc etc are as optimal as possible.

Really, so it's not inevitable that they will be sore if the latch, positioning is right, even if they are chewing on a pretty dry breast in those early days?

It is pretty sore in the early days, but it's not because the breast is "dry", it's more because you're getting used to constant feeling where there has been nothing. There is always milk there but colostrum comes out in tiny droplets. Still, it is constantly being produced and they will be getting something. Just imagine if your water pressure was really low in your shower but it was still dribbling out in a constant but smaller stream - you'd still get wet if you stood underneath it.

I used to count 12 swallows when DS first latched on and by 12 it had stopped hurting. If it's hurting for the whole feed it might be worth getting your latch checked out by somebody.

No, honestly, I didn't get sore (or cracked, or bleeding) nipples with either DD, and I fed them loads in the early days. I'm sure there are plenty of other women here who actually found BF ok and not painful. Maybe those who did are just more likely to speak up about it, so it seems like everyone finds it painful?

There seems to be disagreement on here about whether a good latch / positioning etc means that you will definitely avoid soreness, and a huge range of BF-ing experiences, but at least sticking to my own personal experience, all I can say is that soreness isn't inevitable. And it really is a great way to provide comfort to a tiny baby. Especially as you mention you have two other DC, and therefore won't have hours to spend rocking / shushing / trying ten different methods of soothing over hours and hours of crying!