Breastfeeding - anything you wish you'd known before?

[hotfuzzra]

Hi all
I'm going to an antenatal breastfeeding workshop to give mums- (and dads)-to-be my experiences.
I am happy to give my story and specifically spread the message about undiagnosed tongue tie, 6 weeks of shredded nipples, thanks DD! but wondered if you lovely MNers could tell me if there is anything you wish you'd known about breastfeeding before you gave birth?
Thanks in advance

That you can use Lansinoh before each feed as a barrier, not just after.

That if they conk out at the beat and are really lazy feeders, a quick chin tickle will keep them going.

That it's a massive palaver and by the time your kids are 3 and 5 you'll wonder why you bothered.

I think something I felt helped me was saying 'I will breastfeed'' rather than I'll 'try' to breastfeed. Like others here, I'd heard all the horror stories and presumed I'd have loads of issues. But I then read some statistic about how something like 94% of Scandinavian ladies are able to breastfeed, so I figured if that many could do it there , then it couldn't be that impossible for me to do it either.

I also said I would feed until 6 weeks no matter how hard it was, at which point I could then give up if it was still proving too difficult.

I read as much as I could before birth too, watched videos and learned about latching etc.

I also made sure to tell everyone in the hospital I wanted to breastfeed, and asked for a nurse to help me at as many feeds as possible, so my latch was done correctly.

Best advice is to try and find other people who breastfeed to be your support group, whether that's family/friends/local breastfeeding group. Really helps to have real life support group!

3.5 months in, I'm still exclusively breastfeeding and totally over the hump!

It took me three months to get pain free, but it was definitely worth it (and much less "palaver" than bottles and so forth imo).

Raynauds syndrome can make it sore and it isn't thrush or mastitis! If you know you have raynauds it's worth being aware of that.

I agree with a lot of what has been said, and would add:

Plain coloured feeding tops are dangerous! Go for patterns... They hide the leaks much better

That BF babies can gets lots of wind
If your nipples get sore then try a change of position
Make sure that you eat and drink properly.
When the health visitor tells you that you will never manage to feed a baby that size and he will need formula as well, ignore her. The body is designed to supply the demand. He was my smallest at 9lb3 and I had no issues with the other 2 either
If you are going out make sure that you are wearing clothing that you can successfully do up/ get back into decent arrangement with one hand ( I failed this more than once, you'd have thought I'd have learnt after the 1st time.....)
Don't eat lots of tomatoes . We had some lovely home grown ones. It gave dd colic until I stopped eating them!
Work out where the decent mother and baby rooms are when you are out.marks and Spencer's and mother are variable depending on the store.
Advice on how to get a BF baby to take something other than boob (dc1 took expressed as well for a few weeks and then just stopped) Very stressful time for my husband who is stay at home Dad with just started weaning baby when I had no choice to return to work full time. We gave up on formula and realised that he would take water from a plastic bottle same as we would

That you need to wake them up to feed every few hours at first. And that you need to listen for them swallowing to make sure they're actually drinking not just comfort suckling. I left DS to sleep in the early days believing the old adage 'never wake a sleeping baby' and he was then v sleepy on the boob and not really transferring milk and it massively affected my supply. I understood feeding on demand but not that some babies don't demand when they need it and we struggled to get him back to his birth weight.

And that the KellyMom website is your friend in case of problems.

And that giving a bit of formula isn't the end of the world, DS is still mix fed at 10 months but I now think if I'd given a bit of formula earlier to get us over the initial issues, he'd have been less sleepy and a stronger feeder.

As others have said, that it can still hurt even if there are no issues. Thankfully it gets better though! Was six weeks of excruciating pain for me and then it disappeared completely disappeared.

That very few people will realise what you're doing when you feed in public, it's more discrete than you think.

Cluster feeding- that was a shock!

That once you get over the hump at the beginning, breast feeding can be a really lovely experience. Ah, milky sleepy face

That unlatching and relatching over and over again isn't necessarily going to improve the latch - just make your hungry baby frustrated!!
My DD had a short upper lip which curled in when she gaped, leading to shredded bleeding nipples and me crying at every feed. Once I worked out I could use my finger to flip out her lip, everything suddenly became much easier. Two lactation consultants and multiple HVs and midwives watched us feed and NOBODY noticed.

Give a bottle every few weeks so that they will take a bottle of you want to go out. Ignoring you can't give a dummy. Try to breast feed asuch as possible so your milk comes through x

That you'll need the support of people around you. If you've a naysayer in the family trying to push bottles for their own needs, undermining your confidence, you can really begin to doubt yourself. Don't!

It can really bloody hurt. Worse than the section, in fact! This will pass though, and you'll suddenly realize somewhere around week 6, that you actually quite like feeding now it's not painful any more.

Buy good bras. You'll be seeing a lot of them.

If you give formula, you're still doing what's best for you and your baby. Feeding your baby is not a failure. I don't know if you're 'allowed' to say this, but it's the truth and would have really helped some of my friends. (And me!)

Wish I had known about the kellymom website and the breastfeeding timeline on alpha parent right from the start - great info.

I thought to myself before ds1, "I will breastfeed" bottle feeding never crossed my mind. So when I was on the ward, struggling, with a section scar and a crying baby; I cried too. I just kept asking for help, I was probably a total PITA but I kept asking. In the end a very old school midwife just grabbed my boob and put it in the right position. This is totally against all protocol I am sure, but it worked.

If it works, and it might not, for many reasons, it's ok, don't beat yourself up.

However if it does, it becomes very, very convenient. Out and about, no need for bottles, sterilising or the worry of running out! We were able to go camping, festivals, up mountains and all sorts with (a bit) less stuff I'm sure people thought I was a hardcore hippy feeder but those that knew me well knew that I am all for an easy life (as I've said, I was lucky it wasn't a bad experience!)

99.9% of people won't even notice you're feeding out and about, I always wore two tops, one cheap vest type and a loose top one; loose one up and cheap vest down. The baby's head hides most of your boob anyway (I had big boobs but also babies with big heads ) the vest top was more to hide my very wobbly belly.

There were definitely times when I wished someone else could feed them, however mostly for me it was great to say, "I have to feed ds now, could you possibly...?"

Wow, this is longer than I intended and I think I come across as really lazy, but with a million other things to do bf definitely made my life easier...in the end!

Totally agree with everything blacktreacle said. If you want to breastfeed but are separated from your baby and unable to feed from birth (as I was) express, express, express. Ask for help expressing and don't stop asking until you feel you know what you're doing. Express every 2-3 hours and at least once overnight. I had no idea and it meant breastfeeding was really hard, physically and emotionally, for about 4 months.

That said, just because it's hard at first doesn't mean it'll be hard forever. If you're struggling, for whatever reason, and breastfeeding is important to you, persist. Set little, achievable goals - I'll feed to the end of the day, weekend, week, month. That way when you do finish it feels like lots of small successes.

And if it doesn't work out, be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to feel disappointed. You aren't a failure but it may take time for you to accept this and that's ok, it can't be rushed. Or you may be completely at peace with your decision. The main thing is not to allow anyone else to tell you how you should feel.

Just reading this thread there's a lot of advice that wouldn't have worked for me.

So I'd say be careful with advice- everyone will tell you what they think, or have heard, or has/hasn't worked for them.

Do what works for you. If you don't want to express, don't. No matter how many people tell you you need a break, or granny wants to feed the baby.

Trial and error. If it works, go with it. If not, don't, whatever anyone else might tell you.

If you are coping, your baby is weeing/pooing/crying/sleeping and meeting milestones. You've cracked it.

Oh and DON"T WEIGH! One of the biggest reasons for most people giving up bf is getting hung up on scales and weight gain. If you are otherwise sure your baby is well you can refuse :)

I'd also say don't fiddle until about 6 weeks. Just feed on demand. Don't worry about expressing, bottles, timing, routines in the beginning. Get to a place where everything is going well, then you can experiment.

Micah it might be important to weigh. I am very wary of blanket "avoid hcp and weighing" mentality with breastfeeding: it makes it seem like the daring/outsider choice for rebels (when it should be normal) and could be dangerous if someone with the baby blues took the not weighing too far (especially based on Internet advice!). The chart is now based on breastfed babies.

Not all HV rush to top up with formula. My DD did gain slowly and needed some checks done. At no point was I encouraged to top up by the hv, and support was given (albeit via nct volunteers I was put in touch with) for breastfeeding as a solution.

My main advice would be stay off Pinterest/American blogs with their special diets and pumping regime. Under 3% of babies need mum to cut out dairy, and you don't have to live on oats or pump to build your supply if baby is feeding normally.

I wish I'd kept DD awake while feeding her, then put her down to go to sleep. At 20 months she still has to feed to sleep every evening, then back to sleep several times through the night. But then, people did warn me about this in the early days, and I just wouldn't listen.

That sometimes you just have to be bloody minded and be determined to carry on, especially with the very, very, very hungry first one (who might or might not be an enormous boy!) It may well be 3 months of seeming hell, but then it suddenly isn't and you then end up BF for months and months and then do it for another two babies after that. I was so pleased that I'd persevered but flipping heck it was hard at the beginning.

Sleepy babies - DC3 was one of these and in the first 2 weeks would not necessarily wake up or cry to feed. So he wasn't gaining weight well. To counter this I went on a feeding mission, fed him every 2 hours with the exception of allowing him a 4/5 hour stretch at night. It worked. It was suggested to me that I could hand express into a cup to try and get extra milk in but I've never found it easy to hand express. However, I did discover that if I just put my nipple near his mouth (even while he was asleep ) that would trigger the let down reflex on its own.

Agree that what works for one person may not for another but if you have all the info and suggestions from others then you have a better chance of finding what does work for you.

Routine - personally I feed on demand as they go through growth spurts all the time and once I start weaning at 6 months a routine will evolve naturally.

Growth spurts - it takes a few days for your body to catch up with an increased demand from the baby.

When it works (and I've been lucky with all of mine that it has give or take the odd mastitis /nipple thrush/sore nipples ) it's a lovely thing (if sometimes a bit physical when they get bigger and twist around and clamp with their solid little gums! ) AND it is the only excuse I'll have for the rest of my life now (last baby) to eat more chocolate than is morally acceptable.

That you don't have to love it. My dd is 4 weeks, no particular issues but I don't get a massive warm fuzzy feeling when I feed her. I love cuddling her close, but I'm fairly sure I'd feel the same if I was holding a bottle... I feed her because it's good for her.

Lansinoh!! Get some in advance, love it, cherish it, use it before and after every time for the first week or so, have it on hand for growth spurts don't let your toddler get hold of it as it's a bloody pain to get a whole tube out of the hair of a child who hates the bath

Seriously consider hiring a bed nest, we have our newborn in the bed with us most nights because she won't go in the crib, but if my DH wasn't so stubborn that he refuses to hire a bed nest as we already have a crib I could roll her into the bed nest after feeds and she'd still be next to me but much less in danger of being rolled on

The womanly art of breastfeeding (whilst heavy going) is very useful and no-nonsense.

Also, just because you didn't succeed first time doesn't mean you're doomed to fail second time. My first daughter was 6 weeks of hell and pumping and crying, my second has been a dream from the start (apart from the agony of the after pains that were so much worse second time round!!!!)

That let down pain can be so painful you cry
That you can't get ready in one go without being stopped to feed, usually many times
That it can make you smell (BO)
If your baby has allergies, you may have to stop eating dairy etc
DPs may take it as their cue to get you to do everything, especially nights as you're up already.

IME new mums don't realise how often babies should feed and one of the reasons they may think their milk is not enough is because the baby wakes for a feed every 2-3 hours. I usually suggest mums to find a support group before their baby is born. I also advise them to seek help if baby feeds for longer than 20 minutes, if baby doesn't wake frequently, if feeding hurts and if they have any doubts about their milk production. I think a lot of BFing is about having a can do attitude and as soon as the doubts creep in, it becomes tricky so the support network is necessary. Oh, also let them know that if they do end up giving a bottle of formula that it's not the end of BFing. I let them know about paced bottle feeding and best ways to ensure that they don't let bottle feeding destroy their supply.