Breastfeeding Tips Ever New Mother Should Know

When my daughter was born, it took only two feeding sessions to realize that despite two nurses showing me how to do it, a class I took at the hospital, and reading an entire book on breastfeeding, I had a lot to learn if I was going to manage to do this. I found everything I had studied and had been shown was insufficient when faced with the reality of nursing, and that with an uncooperative baby. I found that all of the tips I'd been given on what to do if I had any problems were bare and unhelpful. It took a lot of thought and reflection and hard gleaning through books and the Internet to come up with something that actually helped. The truth is, breastfeeding can easily go wrong, in big and small ways, just as it can easily go right as nature falls beautifully into place between mother and baby. Here are the problems that I faced as I attempted what I had always thought of as a natural and therefore easy act of motherhood, and the solutions that, to my great relief, helped me to get to the natural and easy part of it.

My primary problem was technique. Not mine-the baby's. My daughter refused to latch on properly. I had no idea that some babies, like mine, just can't be made to do it right. My lactation consultant showed me how to get her on the breast right, but that's where the help stopped. Because no matter what I did, my baby always insisted on adjusting herself until she was on it wrong, pushing the areola out of her mouth until she was happily chomping on my nipple, as nature did not intend. It took me days of frustration and trying to latch her on right before I realized that the problem was her and not me and that there wasn't much I could do about it except give her time to get it right. I remember the instructor in the class I took said "You can hang a four-month-old baby upside down from its toes and it will latch on correctly. An older baby doesn't need to be shown how to do this like a newborn does." And so I did my best to get her on the breast right, where she wasn't chomping down on my nipple, and then let her eat . She always went right to chomping, and it hurt unbelievably. But relaxing and letting her do it her way meant she could eat in peace instead of being constantly stressed out. Newborns are naturally stressed out from birth, and any additional stress can only lead to disaster. I found that once I quit trying to force it and relaxed, she and I both did better with the feeding sessions. It took just two weeks for her to learn to stay on the areola where I put her when I helped her latch on. How to work with a difficult nurser who will not be helped was nowhere mentioned in my books or by the nurses who helped me. It took me almost a week to come to the conclusion that some babies just don't do it right and that I doing anything wrong, and that if I just relaxed and gave her some time, she would get it.

I also had to dig for truly helpful tips about basic breastfeeding problems. Like engorgement. That can cause major problems with nursing, especially if you are already having problems like I was. And let's face it, when your milk first comes in it can be impossible to avoid engorgement, because you are likely to produce more milk than your baby will eat. It took less than an hour after each feeding for me to become engorged, and my baby wasn't ready to eat again yet. I set an alarm to make sure I fed her 1 ½ hours on the dot. Even a minute later made a huge difference in how full and swollen my breasts were, and how much they hurt, and how well my baby was able to latch on. I was able to adjust the time to two hours as my milk supply stabilized and I quit making more than my baby could eat. My husband was my hero when he got up at 4am to go to Wal-Mart and buy me a breast pump. That pump became my best friend. I used it to empty my breasts a little if they did become too full by the time my baby was ready to eat. An engorged breast will make the areola too large for a newborn to latch onto, forcing her to latch onto the nipple. Ouch! I also used the pump when I had clogged milk ducts. I could make sure the clogged breast was completely emptied after each feeding, which helps avoid infection and enables the duct to clear. It also helped tremendously to take hot baths and soak the clogged breast and massage it. It eased the pain and loosened up the clog so the duct could clear. I massaged during nursing and pumping as well. I always managed to clear a clog within two days using these techniques.

I learned lanolin is a life-saver if your nipples are chapped, blistered, cracked or sore. It is a substance secreted by sheep when they are sheered, to heal their skin, and it works wonders on the tender skin of the nipple. It isn't harmful to the baby, and is virtually tasteless, unless your baby has a very sophisticated palette. I used it after every feeding for the first several weeks. It was easy to apply, soothed the irritated nipple instantly, and healed the cracks and blisters quickly.

Having a successful and satisfying experience with breastfeeding does not always happen automatically. We are often set up to believe it will, and then are left with a shallow, just-in-case means of help if it doesn't. Women learn to breastfeed during the most vulnerable, self-depriving, chaotic upheaval of their lives-caring for a brand-new and sometimes impossible baby. It can be very meaningful and magical, but it can also be an extreme amount of trouble and anxiety if things don't go well and you don't know what to do to help yourself. I don't know how I would have survived nursing my newborn if I hadn't discovered these solutions to the challenges I faced. It enabled me to turn what was an around-the-clock torture session into a time of deep peace and relaxation. For the woman who enjoys nursing her baby and is able to find success in it, there is the greatest pride, and the richest, earthiest sense of wholeness with life and motherhood. It's an opportunity to curl up with a miraculous new baby, repeatedly each day, and re-center yourself amidst the insanity of caring for a newborn. Your baby is soothed and content, his deepest need sufficiently met, and circumstances fade as you are mysteriously aware of being a part of the throb of pure existence. Happy breastfeeding.