Congratulations! Here you are, gazing at your amazing newborn, completely overawed at your little miracle. 

Breastfeeding your baby feels like a huge responsibility, you desperately want to make this work but you have heard all sorts of stories about how difficult it can be.

Although breastfeeding is natural, it is a skill that you and your tiny baby will be learning together as you get to know each other. With practice, you will find it gets easier and soon, you will find breastfeeding the natural intuitive experience it is meant to be.

Here are some tips to help get you through the first three days.

1) Talk to the hand

It can be a shock to have a midwife pick up your baby and grab your breast then shove your baby on to feed. Its going to be far easier for you and your baby if you allow your baby to follow his natural instincts and use his inbuilt reflexes to find the breast and attach by himself, albeit with a little gentle guidance sometimes. 

 2) Snuggle Skin to skin

As soon after birth as possible, ideally immediately, allow your newborn to lie between your breasts against your bare skin.

When babies are held skin to skin against their mother’s body within a few minutes after birth, they instinctively move up towards the breast using a stepping reflex with their feet and using their arms, guided by the scent of the amniotic fluid on their hands and a similar scent on Mum's nipples. 

If you are patient and allow your baby to take her time – it may take up to an hour for your baby to complete the natural pre-breastfeeding behaviours such as kneading your breasts with her fists, grasping and licking your nipples then attaching and sucking.

3) Don’t rush your baby

If your baby isn’t interested in feeding at this first feed, please don't worry, allow skin to skin cuddles and let him come around in his own time. A healthy full term baby has stores of brown fat and his stomach will be full of amniotic fluid that will sustain him for the first day or two.

If your baby is having difficulty latching or needs feeding more urgently due to complications, you can hand express some colostrum and give this to him in a syringe (ask your midwife for help).

4) Watch your baby, not the clock

There is no need to time feeds – In the first day or two, your baby may be sleepy as he recovers from a long labour or he may want to stay almost constantly attached to the breast. Either response is normal and you don't need to worry that letting your baby suck too long will damage your nipples.

Get a midwife to check or ask if there is a lactation consultant who can watch a feed and check baby’s latch, mouth and oral function. 

Because your baby is learning how to use his tongue and oral muscles and colostrum is thick and sticky, it can take him up to twenty minutes or longer just to suck a single teaspoon of this liquid gold that is often referred to as ‘baby’s first immunization’.  

5) Baby's Second Night

 It’s really common for babies to want to suck almost constantly on the second night. Unsettled behaviour on the second day is not due to hunger. Instead, your baby is waking to the sensory changes between his cosy womb world and the ‘outside’ . 

This sucking is important to help your baby practice feeding (coordinating sucking swallowing and breathing) before he has a large volume of milk to contend with.

Frequent feeds will help your milk ‘come in’ and the surges of prolactin (milk making hormone) that your baby’s sucking causes in these early days  are helping activate receptors in your breast that will increase your longer term milk making potential.

By keeping your baby close and watching his hunger signals, your body will adapt and make exactly enough milk for your baby’s needs.

If constant feeding is overwhelming for you, as your baby dozes, gently release your baby from the breast by popping your little finger into the side of his mouth to break the suction and let him let him lie against your chest until he is in a deep sleep (his arms will become limp), then move him to his bed or your partner’s arms if you need a rest.

6) Rest. Rest. Rest.

Please honour the huge job your body has done, limit visitors and protect your space in these early days. Your baby, your partner and you need rest now to help you recover. You need uninterrupted time together to get to know your little one, to learn to breastfeed and to transition to your new role.

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