It makes me so angry!

[msappropriate]

My friend with a new ds got told that she only need to feed for 5 mins each side, anything else is for comfort. This was from her Doctor. The HV was more generous, ten minutes! I asked what she told her to do when the baby was crying, oh just comfort and cuddle her. And these people are paid to tell women this.

Oh fgs. This cr*p makes me so [angry}

It was advice like that thaat contributed to my giving up bfing!

My crappy Miriam Stoppard baby book said 10 mins too. Luckily I binned it quite early on. The health professionals are always so adamament too.

This the reason my milk supply disappeared when ds was three weeks old. I was told by hv that feeds shouldn't last more than half an hour and that I'd get mastitis if i fed for much longer. Poor ds is such a slow feeder, just like my sister's two girls, and once I realised I needed to ignore this found out that he needed more like 45-50 mins each side per feed!!!! Took me ages and blood sweat and tears to get the supply back up again grrrrr!!

my hv said not to swap boobs during a feed unless baby has been on for over 20 mins. This was because it was the fore (sp) milk and to much can give the baby wind. Also it was the hind milk that contained all the fat so needed to get as much of this as they can.

oh ffs. bet they don't tell that to women bottle feeding! that really is need to make a complaint level bad advice.

lardylumps - what a misleading sort of thing for your HV to say.....

It's crazy - no one's body works according to the clock like this.

ahem... I believed that one too, was paranoid he wasn't getting hind milk (like a switch flicked and out came the good stuff!) examined every nappy studiously to make sure it was yellow each time, I even used to squeeze a drop out to check if it was creamier to satisfy myself he'd reached the hind milk! Oh the paranoia of first time motherhood. I can laugh now cos I'm suuuuch an experienced mother (of six months! )

I read a book that said you must empty each breast before starting a new one, or baby will not get hind milk and starve to death? (may not have been worded quite like that) Is that not the case then?

There's SO much conflicting advice re bf. I am Confused. How did people manage before bottle feeding and they just had to not think about it and do it? Babies, I have decided, make you feel very stupid and de-skilled. Mine is coming next month and I am a bag o' nerves.

EllieG, yes you should empty one breast before moving to the other so that your baby doesn't just get fore-milk, but get the hind milk too. But a lot of the time they need both full breasts in one sitting anyway, main thing is to feed on demand - feed as long as they need, and as frequently as they need.

Msappropriate - With my first ds, I told my midwive he was having 10 mins on one boob and 10 mins on the other, she said if he's having 20 mins maybe you could give him 15 mins on the first and 5 mins on the other. She then went on to describe it as having starters and mains on one boob and pudding on the other! I thought that was a good way to describe it.

Also I like the fact that she acknowledged that my baby was capable of deciding the length of time HE needed to fill up!

I hope this is not a stupid question, but obviously I don't know - how do you know when your breast is empty of milk?

Your breast doesn't empty, as once bubs has taken the milk that is in there, your body will make more, of the good fatty hind milk. So it will not run out. Relax and let bubs lead the way, some are very slow feeders, and some can do ten minutes a side and get all they need quickly. This is a very good site, which answers pretty much any BF question!

www.kellymom.com/

re:emptying, You can tell it has reduced in size and is squishy compared to the other which will be firmer.

It does become second nature. Also when I forget which boob they had last I give 'em each a feel to see which is firmer and fuller.

Oh dear....all this talk of breasts having to be empty before you change sides
Many books, and many HCPs, get this totally wrong and no wonder women are confused.

Breasts do not empty. You do not need to keep the baby on one side to get 'the' hindmilk. Foremilk and hindmilk do not exist as separate 'packagaes' of milk. he amount of fat in the milk varies in proportion to the fullness of the breast. A baby who is feeding with only short gaps between feeds will typically take a relatively high fat feed each time, because the breasts are not massively full. A baby who has longer gaps will typically take a relatively lower fat each time, because the breasts are fuller. All this is explained on the website kellymom.com and I think mumsnet's humker has it on her blog, too.

Timing (to see if the baby has been on long enough) and squeezing (to see if milk is creamy, or still there) - it should all be banned And any book that messes with mothers' heads like this should be binned. And any HCP who propogates this rubbish should be, um, retrained

My DS would happily suck the same boob without a break for 2 hours, so I let him. It made him happy and he put on weight fine.

I didn't take any advice whatsoever from the HV on breastfeeding, I took advice from my mum and did what my DS wanted.

very restrained of you on that last word there tiktok!

a friend of dh has been told to top up with formula because ONE of her boobs "isn't producing enough milk" - now I am no expert, far from it, but that isn't right is it? I though the milk was made "centrally" as it were? She is very happy with the arrangement and sees it as a way to keep bf-ing for longer, and I didn't want to say that I thought it might affect her supply?

So, basically, is best just to let baby feed for however long she needs? And she will know when that is? Gina F says in her book to express for x mins (can't remember how many) then feed for x mins and make sure empty breasts etc

i haven't read GF but i don't think her bf-ing advice is really rated on here. the kellymom site someone has listed above has everything you need to know, the bf-ing support groups all recommended it to me (yes I rang them all! several times! )

Fab. I will have a good look at that then, thanks

Thanks Tiktok for correcting about the foremilk / hindmilk thing.

Friend with 2 week old dd with nappyrash in obvious discomfort, MW suggested a number of things including washing with pure bar soap to wash the urine off the skin at every nappy change, changing brand of nappies and letting baby have longer on one boob as the foremilk can be more 'acidic' and might make urine more stingy. Is there any merit to the acid foremilk thing? I now suspect this too is a bit of a myth...

Caz- one of my boobs produces less milk than the other and always has done (I expressed at work for a year so noticed this). Didn't stop me exclusively bf for 6 months, and continuing to bf for at least another 15 months (DS 21 months and still bf) with no formula at all. And he's huge !

Milk is produced in each breast separately.

If you give other milk, your body produces less - simple demand and supply.

Ellie - babies will let you know when they need to feed and when they want to swap breasts. The advice in that book is not good for bfing.

grr @ these "expert" BF books!

What really gets to me is that they don't treat babies as individuals, that they all somehow feed for similar amounts, lengths of time and frequency. It would be seen as absurd to say that all adults should eat at the exact same times of day and feel hungry at exactly the same time!

Caz, your friend has been given duff advice, but breastmilk is not produced 'centrally' - just the opposite! At first, the surge in prolactin after birth does stimulate 'central' production, but after this time (just a few days) the influence of prolactin starts to wane, and the milk is produced as a direct response to its removal from the breast and this can vary between breasts. Breasts may have a different level of 'performance', and/or the baby can develop a preference for one or the other, with the result that the breasts 'behave' differently in the amount of milk they make.

It is crazy and wrong to give formula because one breast is under-performing. Most women would manage to produce enough milk for one baby using one breast only if they had to - baby would just feed more often on that one breast - and some babies really dislike one breast for some reason, and the mothers give up trying to insist on it. The milk then dwindles on that side only. But the answer to 'one breast produces less' is to feed more often on that side or to double the number of times the baby comes to the 'good' breast. Not formula, fgs

tellnoone - I don't know about foremilk being more 'acidic' and I am pretty sure it is not.

What can happen with less creamy breastmilk (which is sometimes called foremilk) is that it travels through the gut more quickly, and does not get 'worked on' by the gastric juices. The waste product does not stay in the gut long enough to turn into yellow poo (the yellow is the result of the fat slowing down the gut transit time).

So the poo can be green and sometimes frothy, and maybe the midwife is thinking this might irritate the skin, because nappy rash is normally caused by the chemical reaction of urine on the stools, which produces ammonia...and of course this can 'burn' the skin. I honestly have no idea if green poo is more likely to react with urine. The midwife's advice is not harmful, I don't think, but whether it is useful I don't know.