Starting to breastfeed your baby

If at all possible, your first try at breast-feeding should be supervised by an experienced midwife. The midwife who delivered you is often the best person, if she is available. You know and trust her, and she will be keen to help you over this first hurdle. Whoever you are able to enlist needs to be there to ensure your baby is latching on properly, taking both the nipple and the areola (brown area round it) into his mouth rather than hanging on to the nipple only, which will make it sore. You will also get sore if you try and pull off your baby whilst he is still sucking, so she will show you how to get him to release your nipple as well. You do this by parting his gums with your finger.
If your baby is uninterested in feeding you may be told (or threatened!) that your milk won’t come in unless he suckles all the time. In fact it will — in some cultures the baby is never put to the breast until the mother begins to lactate.

You are also likely to worry if he wants to suckle all the time, in case he isn’t getting enough. Breast-feeding babies do not normally need bottles of formula milk in the first three days — nature tends to get things right and provide enough colostrum to keep him going until your milk comes through. You don’t have to be browbeaten into giving a bottle of formula milk in the first 72 hours by someone saying that your baby is hungry, unless this is on the specific advice of a paediatrician. There is a risk that giving an impatient baby a bottle of formula milk when it is not nutritionally required will fill him up and make him less prepared to suckle at the breast when your milk does come through. It is also the case that formula milk (even a few grammes) may trigger allergies in certain babies.

There are three exceptions to all this:

1. Babies who have not grown adequately during pregnancy are sometimes initially unable to regulate their own blood sugar level well enough and need extra feeding.
2. Very big babies sometimes can’t settle at all because they are genuinely starving hungry. Your paediatrician will tell you if this is the case.
3. If you have already developed horribly sore nipples you may have no alternative but to rest them for a feed or two.