Breastfeeding is totally natural and normal. It is what mammals were created to do in order to feed their young until such a time as these little ones could naturally, with their own teeth, eat the natural healthy foods their parents eat.

But the fact that breastfeeding is natural doesn’t mean it is always easy at first! Breastfeeding is an art to be learned by both mom and baby, and there are certain things that new mothers can do in order to make this bonding and nurturing journey easier and pleasurable for both.

Here are some tips and pointers that I hope you’ll find helpful:

• Learn what is normal for breastfeeding. When possible, watch other mothers breastfeed - preferably before baby is born.
  
  
• Read about breastfeeding, but don’t always take the first thing you see as gospel, as there is a lot of incorrect advice out there that doesn’t hold water when it comes to how breastfeeding really works.
  
  
• Don’t ever compare breastfeeding with bottle-feeding! It’s like comparing a human baby to a calf after the calf has been ‘modified’… (I have bottle-fed and breastfed, and needed a paradigm-shift in my thinking before I relaxed and realized that I couldn’t compare the two)
  
  
• Breastmilk is so perfect babies need less of it than formula (artificial milk)! Babies need only about 60-70ml of breastmilk for every 100ml of formula! So don’t compare and think that you’re not producing enough milk due to not being able to express the amount that a tin of artificial milk says baby needs! (This is a common mistake moms make)
  
  
• Be more patient with yourself and your baby if you’ve had a caesarean section or medication. At first you may not be able to move as freely as a mother who’s given birth naturally, and may need to experiment with comfortable positioning. You will also need an extra pair of supportive hands to help you in the first few days/weeks. (Mothers need 3 pairs of hands at the best of times, lol!)
  
  
• Stay skin-to-skin with baby straight after birth and whenever possible in the first 3 or more months, as this helps to wire baby’s brain for breastfeeding (even mothers undergoing caesarean-section can request this!) Being skin-to-skin with your baby also helps your mothering instincts to kick in and function optimally. Some mothers feel ‘out of touch’ with their babies, and this literally is the case. Hold your baby more. You’re not spoiling your baby. You can’t spoil with love. Babies were meant to be held, carried or worn. Mothers need more help and support from others in the first 6 to 12 weeks.
  
  
• Make sure baby opens mouth wide, and aim your nipple to top back of baby’s palate, not to baby’s tongue, which can cause sore nipples.
  
  
• Keep nipples dry. Soggy nipples cause the skin to weaken. Change breastpads often.
  
  
• Don’t use thick layers of nipple cream, your skin needs to breathe. Breastmilk is the best nipple cream (unless you have thrush), so after baby has finished feeding, hand-express a few drops of breastmilk and rub this all around the nipple and areola, then wait for it to air-dry before closing up your bra. You can lightly drape your shirt over your breast for a bit more privacy while your nipples dry. This ties in to the next point:
  
  
• Don’t close up your bra straight after a feed. Cracks around the base of the nipple can form when you do this. The nipple needs to dry naturally and return to its natural shape after a breastfeed before you close up your bra, otherwise the moist, elongated nipple will fold back on itself, trapping the moisture and weakening the skin. This may start to cause and worsen a nipple’s base-line crack every time baby feeds.
  
  
• Feed at least 8-12 or more times in 24 hours. Actually, feed as many times as your baby needs to. Each mom and baby pair are unique. Your diet differs from your friend’s. Your breasts are a different size. Your metabolism is unique. Your baby has their own genes: some will be huge rugby-players and some will be small-stature jockeys ;)
  
  
• Don’t doubt your milk. Eat enough healthy foods often. Not having enough time is no excuse: A few handfuls of raw sunflower seeds and raisins with an apple and a banana while feeding your baby makes a great and nutritious ‘meal’ that doesn’t need any preparation. Have a healthy snack-table stocked where you usually feed your baby so that you can eat and drink when baby eats. Drink enough pure water. Rest enough and go to bed early. Feed as often as your baby needs, and your breasts will do the rest!
  
  
• Have baby weighed weekly in the first few months to make sure all is going well, but don’t panic if baby has not regained birth-weight by 2 weeks, as long as they’ve done so by 3 weeks. New research now shows that when mothers are given intravenous fluids in the hours before the birth of their babies, the babies actually gain some of this fluid as ‘weight’ too, but they urinate it out soon after birth again, showing a larger drop in weight! This can cause mothers and medical staff to think baby is losing too much weight when actually it’s simply the excess IV fluids given to mom. (On the other hand, when mothers drink a lot before birth, it has no effect on this extra fluid-weight-gain of baby just before birth, so does not cause this sudden water-weight-drop of baby after birth.) Due to this extra IV fluid weight in baby, which gets urinated out, it may seem that baby’s birthweight is not regained ‘in time’ again, and mothers may be encouraged to top up with formula, which is totally unnecessary in these cases. Baby just needs a little more time, and that’s why 3 weeks is a good time to aim for birth-weight to be regained.
  
  
• If you’re having trouble, get qualified help. Don’t listen to just anyone, especially if they’ve never successfully breastfed! Some friends or family members may be well-meaning, but can totally undermine your confidence based on their failure-to-breastfeed stories. These are who not to take advice from if they’re encouraging you to give up.

Go with the flow, relax, and enjoy this special time with your baby.

Posted: 12 October 2011