Breastfeeding tips?

**Oana** · 19-02-2012, 09:48pm

Originally Posted by Raspberry beret

Thanks everyone - lots of really really helpful advice which I'm reading and taking in!

Oana, I'll get that book for my kindle. Thanks for the link too, just reading through!

No probs, she is a bit love/hate & I picked the book up on a whim one day & feel that knowledge from here combined with the book made good sense but I do feed laying down or I'd be a walking zombie

**myzzterri** · 19-02-2012, 09:59pm

never actually bought the book but the author is the lady I quoted earlier! And googling to try to find that quote brought up a hell of a lot of vitriol against her!! But I don't care - that one quote MADE bf'ing for me!

**skylark** · 19-02-2012, 10:01pm

I haven't read all the replied but my little piece of advice is this:

Even when you are both doing it right, in the early days it does hurt. Perhaps if we ran around with out nips out it wouldn't but we don't. They are tucked away in our bras, creamed up and looked after. Along comes this small creature that puts more strain on them than we could eve imagine. With both of mine it took a good 6 weeks to feed comfortably. In fact, they cracked worse with the second. After that it is a breeze.

**claireh** · 19-02-2012, 11:06pm

The whole breastfeeding advice thing is so tricky as no two babies are the same and no two mums are the same so naturally what works for one won't suit another mum and baby.

My tuppence worth would be;
- in the early days really focus on the latch. Don't worry about how you hold the baby, just get comfy. Look at the corner of the baby's mouth and aim to have the corner of the mouth in a wide 'V'. If they dont have a wide v they are probably not latched properly which may result in you getting sore nipples. By checking on the wide latch every time my babies fed in the early days I have never had a cracked or sore nipple.

- in hospital after the baby is born snack on oat flapjacks and cereal bars. This helps with supply and your energy levels.

- personally I'm not a fan of super frequent feeding after the first couple of weeks. I've actively encouraged my two to go as long as possible between feeds. I have done this by trying to make sure the take as much as possible at each feed. This would mean aiming for a 20 minute feed on one side. A nappy change to wake the baby up as they would invariably fall asleep and then I would feed them for 10 minutes or so on the other side. This meant they would go a fair time between feeds which allowed me to recharge a little.

These are the things that helped me but may not suit you and your baby.

**scrobble** · 20-02-2012, 02:08pm

Definitely use Lansinoh generously! And air your nipples, like others have said - I'd keep a bra on during the day but sleep topless at night with a towel under me to catch any leaks. I didn't do this with M and Z and got horrible nipple thrush as a result.

I found that disposable breast pads irritated my nipples as they were never soft enough, and really rate Lilypadz - they're not cheap at £12-15 a pack, and only seem to keep the sticky for a couple of months, but they were the only thing that didn't irritate me. You do need to be really careful to wash them each evening and leave them to dry overnight, though. I virtually never leaked with them, and that was only in the very, very early days when my milk was settling down.