How soon after the birth does baby need to be fed?!!!

[maltatheterrible]

OK this is a silly question but it's bothering me, any feedback would be appreciated.
I am due to give birth in Feb, I am not overly worried about that process. Yes I know it's going to hurt, possibly quite a bit but I am not focusing on that as it doesn't seem very helpful. The bit that worries me is afterwards, when my baby is handed to me. I have seen some newborn babies which are all calm and blinky - and some that are screaming for England.
If mine is a screamer, what do you do?!! Is she likely to be hungry - or will trying to ram a breast at her after all the trauma of being born just make things worse? I have no idea why I am worrying about this, just don't want to look like a idiot by getting it wrong right at the start.
Can you tell this is my first?

skin to skin...depends of what you want...I loved having the Bubbas delivered onto me....so, they were , I suppluse all gooey, lol...but I really didn't care....!
Ys was delivered by C-section and because, for obvious reasons I could not hopld him straightaway, once they checked him through, they gave the naked lil man to my dh and made dh take his top off (as put in the Birthplan....)

you can request the baby to be delivered straight onto your tummy, witout being cleaned and then you can get baby to the breast or just for cuddles straight away....

With DS I had wanted him delivered straight onto my chest. But he was covered in so much old meconiummy stuff (had pooed at some point in utero!) that they flopped him onto my lower belly and gave him a brief wipe down first. It was a matter of 30 seconds or so though. Much appreciated as he really was all greeny black and a bit minging!

My hospital wouldn't give me anything for my 5 pound baby for 30 hours. They kept saying 'they often sleep for the first 24 hours', and I couldn't produce any colostrum, and have been bleating on my own breastfeeding threads about how my baby wouldn't latch onto my flat nipples. She was hungry the whole time, and after 30 hours they finally gave me a syringe and told me to stimulate her sucking with my finger and push the syringe into her cheek. She took about 4mls, and is now very jaundiced. I was really upset but got over it: now I'm kind of upset again knowing that babies are supposed to eat so early.

As I had a c/s my dd couldn't be delivered onto my tummy but as soon as I got to hold her immediately after for a few seconds and then DH held her while they stitched me up. I was then wheeled into recovery and the midwife and I set to work to put DD on the breast asap ...
Had a bit of an argument as to how - the Midwife wanted me to do the 'rugby ball hold' but I didn't want to and wanted to hold her the 'normal' way (I won ). I can't remember DD being a screamer ... by then the euphoria of having produced a real live baby girl did something funny to my hearing ...
Luckily DD had read the breast feeding manual in utero and latched on like a pro ... I then phoned my mum on DH's mobile to tell her the good news ...

Oh someone pass me a tissue ... just reliving that has made me all teary (in a lovely way) ... sniff

oh that's sweet! Could your baby lend my baby this breast feeding manual please? I'd so like to be a natural

I have to say after having both DS2 I was way too tired to even look at them. Not that I wasn't absolutely over the moon, I just needed to get my energy back and I wouldn't have taken kindly to anyone telling me that I must bf. I was great for DH as he got to spend the first 2 hours cuddling DS2 and still talks about it now. It didn't affect my bonding with him, I just needed a little time.

I'd say go with how you (and bubba) feel on the day, I delivered DD in the pool and held her straight away didn't want someone else to be the first! Cuddled her for maybe 5mins? Then MW cut the cord and handed her to DH while the sorted out my placenta. Once that was done (maybe 20mins later?) they gave her back to me and laid her on my chest where she rooted for my nipple and latched on

Would have held her for longer when she was just born but I was losing a bit of blood so they needed tso sort that first.

She fed twice the first day and second day and four times the third day, five times the fifth then my milk came in and it was every two hours!

thats exactly the kind of info I was looking for, thanks monkeymoo, its really great to get a bit more detail from someone about how these things are done - I suppose you can't go wrong with the "feed them when they're hungry" idea, but it's nice to know how often that might be.
I had a dream last night that I gave birth and the baby asked for a Martini, maybe I shouldn't have seen that Bond film afterall.......

I had both times, my babies delivered straight up to me for skin to skin, I lay there, delivered the placenta etc (I gave birth standing up lay down with baby afterwards)
Both times ds and dd both started rooting for a nipple as they were lying down.
Both cried a few times after delivery but once on me and covered they were calm blinky sleepy babes.
Both fed well from the start. Not sure they got much milk wise but they certainly enjoyed it
You'll find it's pretty instinctive

You'll do what you need to when the time comes. My first was born at 3.33am (sign of the half-beast, but that's another story), she screamed a lot but didn't feed until about 10 in the morning.

2nd baby was fairly calm and fed about an hour after birth.

3rd baby was textbook perfect, fed immediately after birth and fell asleep across me for 7 hours.

So whatever happens, it'll be fine, no worries!

My ds barely took anything the whole first week. He wouldn't latch on (mainly because he fell asleep as soon as I would hold him) so the lactation consultant told us to force feed him formula. He preferred to sleep through everything.
Some babies come out hungry (my friends dd was nicknamed "the pirana" by hospital staff) others come out just wanting to be snuggled.