How to breastfeed

[PinkBump2022]

I’m 30 weeks pregnant and decided that I want to try breastfeeding. Iv never breastfed before. Iv bought a nursing pillow and some nursing pads, I just have some questions…..
will I need to stay in hospital until baby is feeding well? If so how long is this?
what if baby wants fed while I’m out let’s say doing the school run….. can I express my milk into a bottle before the school run and take this bottle with me? How long would that milk in the bottle last without going off?
do I need to buy special nursing clothes and bras?

As someone who did not get a latch right away and did lots of research afterwards here is what I wish I had done:

The Golden Hour

I missed mine, and this contributed massively to her not being able to feed right away.

Soon as she comes out you want to have her naked on your chest. They crawl up the breast and find the nipple themselves. Let this happen.

We interfere in natural processes too much. Look up the golden hour and go on youtube and just relax and watch a few videos around it.

When baby comes if you feed on demand and co-sleep your milk will be fine as that's how the milk is made, regular suckling and throughout the night during growth spurts, one comes at four months and they need to suckle a lot more and people mistake this for sleep regression, but it's not, it's just the baby needing to suckle to produce the milk that has the right fats and nutrients to support the spurt.

You don't need a thing but breasts and a baby. Go back to nature. Under complicate things. Uncomplicate things.

Golden hour
feeding on demand
co-sleeping
relax and just "feed the baby".

If things go wrong do two things:

try to rectify them
forgive yourself
move on

But you can, and it is an option. You can do the double top thing to pull one bit up, no one sees anything and you aren't doing anything weird or wrong.

I fed

on the bus
at a christening
walking down the street with baby in a sling
in bed

everywhere all the time for almost five years.

I had two comments in those five years, from old ladies, telling me how lovely it was to see someone openly feeding. I never had my boobs on show or made a fuss of what I was doing but I was always going to feed my baby when she needed feeding.

Find your local La Leche League and give them a call. They're a free peer to peer supporter group for breastfeeding and will be really helpful. Also see if there are any breastfeeding groups or drop in sessions locally.