Best piece of breastfeeding advice you were given?

[RubyWoooo]

As it says on the tin, really. What was the one golden bit of advice you were given?

Looking for some nuggets of wisdom after miserably failing with BFing DD. Second DC due in a few days.

Thanks in advance

My best bit was that every babies latch looks different so don't assume that just because yours doesn't look like it shows on Google images or as described in books. This helped me because my babies small mouths never covered my nipple area like the books said it should. Apparently I should have been removing her and attaching again but never did. Still bf 18 months later.

Also, my friends advice that your nipples bleed for the first week so just ignore it because it gets better. It really did.

Never blame yourself if it doesn't work out!

To be fair I still need to work on this, 16 months later I am still a tiny bit sad it didn't work for us. But he is healthy and happy!

I should have finished that first sentence with "it's wrong"

If they won't stop feeding - and you can't ever imagine that they could possibly still be hungry - keep feeding!

Look at it as your baby 'putting in the order' for the next few days to bump up your supply.

Drink a glass of water for every feed you do. You'll feel horribly dehydrated sometimes as it's easy to forget how much liquid you're losing and it helps to keep up your supply.

It will hurt but it will get better. Lansinoh is very good.
Cabbage leaves from the fridge also help but do not fall asleep with them in your bra as you will make cabbage soup.
Stop when they get teeth .

When my youngest had posterior tongue tie and was losing weight, nobody except for a very experienced and wise LLL had the cajones to tell me that my supply was really low and I needed to pump 8x day to get it back up again for my baby. I quickly pulled things around but only because of her!!

Feed your newborn baby every 2 hours whether or not they wake up and whether they seem to want it or not. I gave up breastfeeding both times (at 8 days with DS1 and DS2) so I am not exactly a bf success story but I believe this advice is the reason Ds1 lost more than 10% of birthweight and ds2 less than 3%. Also be adamant aboyt skin to skin in hospital. Also helps with the above.

Good luck :) Be kind to yourself (the most important advice of all)

Mine was keep going, it gets easier.

Sorry - that should say 8 weeks with Ds2

Best was i had a breastfeeding support worker offer to come out (routine ) and even though it was going fine i said ok. Ds was just starting cluster feeds and even though i knew what they were i didnt realise how intense they could be .not helped by mil and fil saying 'oh feeding again, cant be getting enough" etc which was totally wrong. Support worker explained in more detail and how the best thing i could do was get a bath, get a comfy nighty and fet comfy in bed with a jug of water a plate of sandwhiches and netflix etc on my phone or some music or magazines and settle down for the evening and once i understood it was normal and geared myself up for it and expected it i actually enjoyed it! And the old "it gets better after 8 weeks" - it really did for me

Wet healing for cracked/sore nipples: smear on a decent amount of Lansinoh, cover with a fresh square of cling film and pop boob back into bra. Actually found it more soothing than the 'fresh air' approach as DS had an unerring knack for kicking me square in the nip every nappy change if I left them at liberty.

Breastfeeding basket: Bottle of water, book (light enough to be held one handed), remote control for the TV, muslins, lansinoh, cling film (tube, to keep it sterile), snacks. Keep close by wherever you're feeding little'un most often.

And when in doubt just offer the boob, 9 times out of 10 it will calm them

So whatever your baby tells you they want.

Ignore all well meaning advice.

Stop when you want. Not when anyone else thinks you should do. Including your baby.

Nose to nipple, nose to nipple!

Then baby 'should' find a good position, hopefully!

Tuck their arm under yours when breastfeeding. It brings them closer and there's more skin contact. The same hold is good for calming them down when they're bigger.
Do night feeds on the bed!

Whenever the baby cries, feed. You cannot overfeed a breastfed baby.

Don't feel guilty about doing nothing in the early days (months)! You're recovering from labour, establishing supply and the baby is too little to care. If possible, spend days topless in bed/on the sofa, watching box sets, drink (lots of water) and snacks to hand.

The website www.kellymom.com is amazing, I loved it when I was feeding DS

Keep at it. It does get easier. Took nine weeks to get a decent latch with my little dude. Fed him expressed milk before then.

And I second the advice that breastfeeding is fantastic for as long as it suits both Mum and baby. If you want to stop, that's fine. If baby wants to wean, that's fine too. Tell every well meaning (read: interfering) fucker to STFU.

It does hurt but not for long. As midwives kept saying it shouldn't hurt but was about a week & lanisoh helped.

Cluster feeding - get a 2 litre bottle of water or squash, Netflix, biscuit, cakes, boxsets, stay in bed or sofa & it's fine.
Building up your supply takes longer than you think & the best thing I read was that it can take 8 weeks to have an established supply.

It does hurt but it does stop eventually and it is worth it.

Lanisoh breast pads.

Don't give up on a bad day.

It's ok to use piles of cushions until it becomes better. It won't be forever.

Feed on demand even if it's not the standard every two hours. It might be every hour or more frequent and baby may stay on for ages. Just go with it, things will settle after 6 weeks. My first midwife said just consider this your job for the next 6 weeks and let other people do everything else

If a midwife in the hospital doesn't look like she knows what she's doing when offers advice, don't listen. Get the advice of a breastfeeding trained midwife/counsellor/decent breastfeeding support group on facebook.
It will hurt at first, your nipples may turn black, that is fine, it will get better and when you crack it and all you have to do in the night is offer your baby a feed you'll be glad you kept at it and don't have to faff with bottles.
You can do it!!

Keep going
With a newborn feed feed and feed some more
After the first few weeks it becomes so easy