How can I prepare for breastfeeding

[Dovetale]

I'm pregnant with my second child. I want to breastfeed them but my experience of trying to breastfeed my first baby was a disaster, we never had a successful feed.

My plan was to visit my local breastfeeding support service, daily if needed, once the baby arrives, but I have just heard that it is closing down due to lack of funding and won't exist by the time my baby is born.

So I need to arm myself with as much good quality information as I can before the birth, but I have come to realise that there is a huge amount of poor/wrong information out there.

Can anyone advise which books I should be reading? Which online breastfeeding videos are worth watching? How do I find a lactation consultant if I need one? Anything else I should be doing to prepare?

[Focusfocus]

Remember that infant feeding is a very emotive issue. If you truly feel something isn't working out and you decide you need to stop be prepared to face less than positive attitudes from a certain handful of people.

I BF. Yet I recently had to leave a BF support group on Facebook for the caustic comments some members were making about FF mums. I gust couldn't watch that.

Preparing is very good. You also need to keep an open mind.

[Sparrowlegs248]

I think you can prepare to an extent. You can be aware that it is incredibly time consuming to start (6-8weeks for me)) can be painful when your nipples get accustomed to it is(use lansinoh after every feed).

I am still ebf my son at 6mo. I did have some early problems, but actually they were down to HV and MW not really having a clue. Baby lost a bit (not even 10%) of weight and then was slow to regain. 5 different people gave me differing advice and made me feel like shit. It was hard because i felt as if ALL i was young was bf and it still wasn't working. I carried on bf on demand constantly and two weeks later baby had gained a lot. So actually I didn't have problems. The HV and MW did.

Good luck i hope it works for you