These are tips pieced together from various articles and from friends.
1) This is very hard to keep to, but if possible, don’t introduce even one bottle of formula milk to the baby, in the hospital or at home. See a very interesting article arguing that solids should not be introduced to a baby until the baby is at least 6 months old. http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/delay-solids.html At the bottom of this article, under the section ‘additional information’ at the end, read the short and very interesting article ‘Supplementation of the Breastfed Baby: “Just One Bottle Won’t Hurt”—-or Will It?’ I wish I had known the information presented there and in other articles mentioned on the same page. It isn’t easy to stick it out in the hospital when your baby is raising a racket and women around you are trying to sleep but research seems to suggest that introducing even one bottle of formula is harmful for the baby.
2) Don’t worry about your milk supply. The same site (kellymom.com) has some good information about this. It’s very rare that a mother cannot supply the amount of milk that her baby needs. Just don’t introduce any additional nutrition apart from the breast milk – no formula, not even water. Pacifiers, like bottles or nipple shields can also cause nipple confusion and cause problems with breastfeeding. I read that a baby will happily glug down a bottle of formula milk after a full feed at the breast, even if they are not hungry. If you start offering formula after a feed at the breast, it will cause your milk supply to diminish because the baby is not getting his nutrition only from you. Breastfeeding is difficult at the beginning. Your breasts only produce very small quantities of fluid in the first days; the baby’s stomach at that stage is minuscule and the amount that your breasts produce is exactly right for their tiny tummy. At around the third day, the milk starts to set in and this period can also be very difficult. Massaging can be good for very congested breasts – the hardness will probably resolve itself after about 24 hours or a little more. It’s key not to give up. As long as your baby is giving wet nappies and the poop turns yellow after a while, you’re doing fine. Nipple pain also will not last forever, you’ve just got to keep going.
3) I really recommend feeding babies on demand and off demand. Routine fed babies usually wean themselves off the breast by seven months or younger. This is not natural. In Bible times, babies were fed anywhere between three to five years. Having said this, some basic principles made our lives with the baby more bearable. We tried not to make her dependent on anything to fall asleep – especially not on us. My practice would be to breastfeed the baby, but without requiring her to fall asleep at the breast and carefully lay her sleeping in her bed. Rather, I would feed her and then lay her, many times still awake, in her cot and leave her to fall asleep alone. We always maintained this practice and the baby soon learned to fall asleep herself. If crying was persistent, I would perhaps feed the baby again but using the same practice – feed her, and then lay her back in her cot awake.
During the night, at the beginning you must get up to feed your baby when she cries, as she needs the regular supply of milk and your breasts need the stimulation of a constantly feeding baby. At around the age of four to six months, most babies start to sleep through the night (well, mine did at least, and I’ve heard this rule from other mothers too). After this point, when you know that your baby is capable of sleeping through the night, it’s very important not to get your baby into the habit of waking to feed again, because that habit can be extremely hard to break afterward. After your baby has learnt to sleep through the night, it’s okay on an occasion to feed them when they wake in the night – use your own wisdom as parents according to circumstance, but then if the baby wakes for a second night running when they are not sick, don’t be tempted to give in and feed straight away. Offer water. The baby has probably waken up because they were used to receiving milk the previous night and wouldn’t mind waking you up for a feed on a regular basis. If you tough it out at this point, things will be much easier for you hereafter. If the baby is in a frenzy, it can be very useful if the husband can go into the room to comfort the child and put them back to sleep, as the mother’s presence without her milk might produce more frustration. It’s not worth it for a baby to wake from sleep for water and comfort, so it’s not likely to become a habit.
4) At night let the baby wake you up to feed, but don’t let her sleep more than five hours for the first few weeks, so that you can establish milk supply. Between two and three months of age, they should start sleeping longer, and eventually sleep through all night. When they start to sleep all night, don’t let them sleep longer than 9 or 10 hours, so that you get enough feeds in during the day to maintain your milk supply.
