Breastfeeding sounds simple when you look it up on the Internet or hear about it from your midwife, but is it really that easy? What if something comes up that you’ve not been told about? What happens if you don’t have enough breast milk?
Not Enough Breast Milk?
Many women are faced with the struggle of not having enough breast milk. It can be a scary time when all you want to do is feed your baby the way God intended, but things just aren’t going as planned.
Tip: Always make sure your baby is latched on correctly and sucking properly.
The next step is getting enough milk to feed your baby. Drink plenty of liquids each day, and even after you think you’ve drank enough, drink some more. Milk and orange juice are two good liquids to drink. This is very important as the baby takes everything it gets from you. Next, you may want to pump. Sounds pretty crazy, I know, but when I was breast feeding my first child I wanted to make sure that I had enough milk. Here is what I did:
Breastfeeding Help
After my baby was finished nursing, I would immediately pump the rest of the milk. This gave my body the idea that my baby needed more milk and it needed to produce it. For the first two to three weeks, I repeated this process until I had more than enough milk to nurse several babies. Don’t be afraid of pumping out too much, because if done immediately after your baby has nursed, your body will have enough time to reproduce the milk.
I also used warm compresses on my breast. These helped ease my breast, along with stimulating the milk ducts. I do want to add that changing your baby’s position is very important. When the same milk ducts are used each time, the milk ducts that are not used can become clogged, which can be very painful. This happened to me with my first child. If this happens to you, use warm compresses and massage to help unclog them.
Breastfeeding Pumps
There are many types of breast feeding pumps available, but don’t search for the most expensive one there is available. You’ll only need it for a few weeks, unless you will be returning to work and will need to pump for the sitter. I used the handheld pump I received at the hospital and it worked perfectly. Be sure to ask about a breast pump before you leave the hospital. Often, you’ll get one for free.