Page 3 | What do you which you had been told about BF?

Stefka · 2007-08-28T12:00:44+00:00

I am planning to BF when my baby comes along in 7 weeks times to thought I better start to get some hints and tips from people. What do you wish you had known about BF before you got started?

pointydog · 28/08/2007 19:35

as belgo said, that it can be excrutiatingly painful for the first few weeks even if you and the baby are doing it all right.

chocbutton · 28/08/2007 19:40

Agree with most of what has been said here!
Lansinoh is fab, and also fresh air on nipples after feeding!
Feed as often as your baby wants.
It will get easier.
Helplines are just that, helpful, and I had an NCT BF counsellor come to my house which was just great.
I think its really important to enjoy the first few weeks with not too many visitors and just be able to concentrate and enjoy feeding your baby.
And its free and no sterilising of bottles, hurray! Good luck, you can get lots of great support on MN.

princessmel · 28/08/2007 20:19

Cluster feeding means your baby having lots of feeds very close together. This is very common in the evening. I'd usually feed dd on and off all night from 6ish till about 10.

Its supposed to fill them up for the night I think. Even though they still wake in the night for more!!

Let down is just your milk coming down the tubes/ducts. maybe tiktok will explain it better.
But I never really felt mine. It doesn't matter imo if you do or dont. I dont think it affects feeding at all.

princessmel · 28/08/2007 20:20

By the way cluster feeding fits in great with watching tv in the evening!!!!

foxymagoo · 28/08/2007 20:38

how veiny your boobs look when your milk is coming in!

Have muslim squares stashed everywhere - great for wiping and discretely covering yourself with (as I did at wedding meal when I made the foolhardy decision to wear a dress when ds was only 5 weeks old...)

FussyGalore · 28/08/2007 22:20

lol faxymagoo. i also had 3 million muslin cloths with ds1 who was a very puky baby (we discovered and roffled at the word posit or posset, whatever it is, and used that instead, so he was a very possetty baby )

ds2, born just 13m after the first, was much less so.

CantSleepWontSleep · 28/08/2007 22:29

That nearly everyone thinks at some point, particularly during evening feeds, that they don't have enough milk, but actually they do (and that supplementing is the best way to ensure that you don't have enough the next night).

That around 7% of babies are milk intolerant, and sometimes dairy passes directly to baby via breastmilk, causing a significant problem that can be avoided by the mother giving up dairy herself.

lucy5 · 28/08/2007 22:38

That just because you found it easy first time you won't necesarily second time round.

absandme · 28/08/2007 22:51

Not everyone gets sore, not everyone gets let down, or leaky boobs, but all of the above may apply.

One night you may think your boob is bigger than your babies head, then a few weeks later you suddenly realise your babies head is bigger than your boob!

Don't be scared to seak out help, if you find it's not the help you're after then ask again elsewhere, it can be done, it can be easy, it can be hard but most definately it is very rewarding!

Elsbells · 29/08/2007 09:15

I have tried to BF 2 DC (DS is now 2 only BF for 4 months - DD is 12 weeks and mix fed so far)

I wish I had known:

It can be hard to establish even 2nd time round

Breastcrawl - it seems to help loads of women to est BF from birth (check out the video on youtube)

If it still hurts after a good latch a couple weeks into BF something else can be wrong (DD had a tongue tie that was not noticed til she was 8 weeks! And she has a high palate)

Jalonet - helped heal my bleeding nipples (next time round I will pack in my case if I have a 3rd DD) Can buy at any chemist - cut into a square and place over nipples

Silverettes - never bought myself but wish I had. They are a fab healer for sore nipples...get them now for the early days when feeds are non-stop (can buy at breastfeeding heaven on web)

Know when all your local support groups are running a session. Great way to learn new positions (e.g. mastering lying down will help you with those night feeds and early mornings)

And BF is an emotional process and take it one feed at a time.

Oh I am so excited for you and hope all goes well. I wish I had discovered MN BEFORE my 2 DC. This is a great question to ask.

ChubbyScotsBurd · 29/08/2007 09:58

That you won't necessarily have to endure several weeks of eyewatering, toecurling, nippleshearing hell before things start to come easily. If you're well prepared and have informed yourself before baby arrives (you're on MN, so a good start!) then chances are you'll get through the first few awkward/uncomfortable days without too much trouble. I'm on week 5 and although I still have the odd wibble it's been nowhere near as bad as I had been preparing myself for.

That your baby will make it quite clear from an early age that when he/she is unhappy nothing in the world compares to a boob for comfort. To this end, it's worth making the effort to give Dad a role (in our house he does the burping and bathing, and often the putting-down-to-sleep), because there's nothing a (my) bloke hates more than feeling helpless, and nothing makes a (my) bloke feel helpless more than a screaming baby who won't settle for anything less than mum's milk.

That (and you will work this out for yourself very quickly) before every feed you should assimilate several cushions (including a v-shaped one, try googling Dunelm Mill for much cheapness), every remote control you can find, a drink (v important) and biscuits (chocolate are best but Hobnobs a respectable second), a muslin cloth and ideally a servant of some sort in case you forget any of the above.

That babies can be very sleepy for the first week or two - A)don't be misled, they won't necessarily always be this quiet! and B)it's ok to strip them down/change their nappy midway through a feed in order to wake them up a bit. Also, don't get too tied up with hindmilk/foremilk when your milk comes in around day 4 - feed from both breasts at each feed for your own comfort, if only for a few days.

I wholeheartedly second the advice not to have visitors on day 4 - I had to endure 11 people hovering around me in my living room while I tried to stem the tears and latch on an increasingly frustrated baby to my enormous football-shaped boobs. Let them come before and after, but NOT ON DAY 4!

That it's the best thing in the world when it works. Even when they're a few days old and they don't do anything, they still look up and wrinkle their nose at you when they latch on and it makes you just melt!

hobnob57 · 29/08/2007 20:18

Oh, and I forgot about The Appetite. Wasn't prepared at all for wanting to eat everything in sight. Make sure you have healthy grub around!

Meglet · 29/08/2007 20:26

That babies sometimes scream blue murder when you try to get them to latch on and continue to do this for 3 weeks until it clicks into place - sort of.

Mossy · 29/08/2007 20:47

I wish I had known all this at the beginning:

That some midwives aren't experts on bfing by any stretch, and how to find the midwife that was an expert on bfing, sooner
About breast crawl
That just because your dh or mil or other relative says they support bfing, doesn't mean they really do, and you should determine what they mean by support early on
That it can really hurt in the early days, and that Lansinoh is fantastic stuff
That just because you don't leak, don't get engorged and can't express more than half an ounce doesn't mean you're not producing milk
About the Avent Isis pump, sooner (much better than the mini electric imo)
How to feed lying down (oh now I know, it's so much easier at night)
How to feed in a sling
About all the different holds
That it can take longer than the six-eight weeks they tell you it takes, to get "established" (ten weeks for me)
That once you do, it makes life easy, and it's wonderful when your baby looks into your eyes and loses his latch... because he's smiling!!

Good luck!!

Psychobabble · 29/08/2007 20:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Elsbells · 29/08/2007 21:51

Ohhhhh this is one I learned the hard way. BF doesn't always help you lose weight. I actually GAINED half a stone BF DS. Pregnancy weight dropped after I STOPPED BF. BF does make you hungry to start but watch out for all those chocolate muffins that BF mothers tend to crave.

crimplene · 29/08/2007 22:07

That humanity would have died out long ago if most of us couldn't do it or ran short of milk within days/weeks as some people would have you believe. Once I'd worked that out, I just kept asking myself whether the opinion/advice would have made sense 300 years ago, if not, I didn't do it (things like topping up etc)

That said, it can be very tough and there was probably a lot more support, experience and advice at a time when you either had to manage, or put your baby's life at risk.

Emzy5 · 30/08/2007 20:22

cluster feeding - can be all day. it's important to get a break so put baba in the pram and go for a walk if it is all day and it's getting too much.

weight - 'oh the weight just falls off when you're bf' hmmmmm... maybe for some people, not me! i am hungry all the time and it has to be that way to loose a measly pound here and there!

jealousy - the first few times my dh gave my ds a bottle of expressed milk i felt jealous and a bit sad. now i love it!

it is the best thing though. persevere, those first two week are weird and tough.

internationalbeeboo · 30/08/2007 21:52

I wish I'd realized how important it is to look after yourself in the early days (resting & eating properly) before I passed out... Although I'd been advised to sleep when the baby slept, I was spending so long feeding at first that as soon as she slept, I would go off & do something just to be off the sofa, rather than having a kip...
And I wish I'd looked out a few breastfeeding-friendly tops before giving birth...I spent a lot of time in the same couple of milk splodged t-shirts...

elkiedee · 30/08/2007 22:02

That it can be hard and that it could go so badly wrong for me, and who to contact and how they could have helped sooner rather than later, and to keep trying to feed him often enough so he didn't get dehydrated and ill. Anything and everything that could have stopped me failing to breastfeed at 1 week old (my baby will be 4 months old next week)

LolaLadybird · 30/08/2007 23:17

I'd second all the comments about banning in laws in the first few days - v tedious feeling confined to your bedroom because you don't want to expose yourself in front of your FIL!

Definitely get organised with good book/mag/TV/drink before starting each time - you could be there a while.

And definitely agree with all the comments on cluster feeding. I had the v misguided idea that by trying to 'stretch' the amount of time dd would last between feeds in the day would help her to go through the night - in fact the opposite was true and I should have been filling her up as much as poss before bedtime. Endured a good few weeks of a v unhappy baby in the evening when, in hindsight, a feed would have helped a lot.

Oh, and the Lansinoh cream is a must. I started off with a Mothercare own version which wasn't a patch on the Lansinoh one.