Before having my son I read an entire book on breastfeeding, cover to cover. It was a long book and I thought I knew it all. Right after giving birth, I stopped thinking I knew it all. Here are some things I wish I had known.
Pillows, Pillows, Pillows
You will need a lot of pillows. A lot of pillows. Did I mention a lot of pillows? Breastfeeding pillows don’t lift a newborn up high enough for proper positioning. It’s helpful to have an extra pillow under or on top of your breastfeeding pillow. You may also need pillows behind your back and under the sides of the breastfeeding pillow. I think I may have had four or five pillows that I positioned for every breastfeeding session. It may feel like you’re building a kindergarten-style pillow fortress every time you sit down to nurse your baby, but after a few weeks one pillow is all you will need. The awkward positioning of the first days will gradually turn into the natural-looking, pillow-free hold you imagined.
You need a drink!
No, not that kind. But you do need to keep yourself hydrated. Making milk takes water and that water comes from you, leaving you one thirsty mama. Bring a glass of water with you to your breastfeeding location or make your husband or other helper bring you one. My mom told me to pick a special glass or mug and make that the one I drank from while I was nursing. It was good advice. While you are waiting for your milk to come in or if your supply seems low drink a fenugreek tea. I like Organic Mother’s Milk® Tea from Traditional Medicinals®.
Be careful what you wish for.
You will have WAY too much milk at first – keep towels handy. When my milk came in, I could not get over my breasts and the way that they were the size of basketballs. I also couldn’t get over the way they managed to soak my clothes, bedsheets, furniture, and firstborn child. I had bought washable nursing pads thinking that they would be adequate for soaking up the few extra drops that might leak out. They did not survive the deluge. Neither did the several shirts a day that I soaked through. I recommend Johnson & Johnson disposable nursing pads for at home. They aren’t individually wrapped so they don’t travel well, but they are the most comfortable and absorbent ones I have found. Cloth diapers or burp rags also work if you just need to shove something in your shirt while the baby nurses on the other side. Oh yeah, that’s another thing I didn’t know about. When your baby is nursing on one breast, the other one will leak or even spray. Be prepared. It may be several months before you can break out the eco-friendly nursing pads without fear of having to change your shirt. It’s OK. I won’t tell the green police.
Hello, ladies
Be ready to kind of forget what caring about modesty feels like. Of course, birth will pretty much prepare you for this. Laugh at yourself. It’s fine. I did the first time I noticed I had been walking around the house (without pants) for hours with one breast exposed and a cloth diaper stuffed into the other side of my bra. Nursing tanks rock. No shirt lifting required and the bra is built in. Get at least three, but skip the white one for now. It will probably (definitely) get stained. Pants are optional.
Help!
I was very committed to breastfeeding but I was a big worrywart too. Soreness, pumping, milk supply, thrush, latch–the worrying went on and on. I had nothing to worry about. It was all fine and, most likely, it will be fine for you too. If you do have any problems, there is help out there. Many hospitals have lactation consultants that will see you and do an in-depth analysis of your problem even to the point of weighing your infant before and after feeding to see how much milk she is getting. La Leche League leaders are more than happy to help, day or night. They’ve been there, done that and have most likely heard it before. Give them a call. Talk to other moms, even ones you don’t know. If a stranger asked me about breastfeeding, I would talk all about it and not even think it was weird that a stranger asked me about breastfeeding. Seriously.
Breastfeeding is amazing. It’s sometimes silly, sometimes painful and often confusing. It is also always perfect, always beautiful and always worth it. Be ready to breastfeed. Seek out as much information as you can and then get ready to be surprised.
By Naomi Marotta
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Tags: breastfeeding, nursing tanks
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Happy that you retweated the post so others could read
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Happy that you retweated the post so others could read
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Oh the horror of the “trained” nurses in the hospital! Apparently, the awesome lactation consultants didn’t work weekends AND being that my twins were born the day after Christmas…slim pickings on the good staff. BUT, eventually with enough tenacity and the help of a very amazing LC (DO take the class before giving birth!) after 2 weeks of using the SNS (read: straw attached to boob for sleepy sucker) both twins (born at 5lbs) are now excellent nursers (4mo) and to my dismay, now refuse a bottle! Bottom line – have an LC in your phone BEFORE giving birth and remember that it’s a lot of work at first…but it gets easier
Oh, and having a pediatrition who supports BF is also a great idea. Oh, one final thought — don’t take those free formulas from the hospital…they look mighty tempting at o-dark-thirty!
This post made me laugh out loud! Especially the part about shoving a diaper into your nursing tank and walking around the house with one boob out and no pants. Been there, done that!
Two things that surprised me (and that I hadn’t read about in the books and have to dig a round online to find information about…) were oversupply issues and excess lipase. I have had to deal with both and am glad to finally have a handle on it, but I had never heard of either issue in the books I’ve read on BFing. Like most new mothers, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough milk to feed by baby, let alone pump and store. Turns out, I have A LOT of milk that made baby choke, sputter and cry when latching at first. I also had a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance that made her fussy and have green poops.
We figured all of that out (turns out my pumping to create a stash before heading back to work exacerbated this problem) only to discover that all of my stored milk had excess lipase and made it taste horrible. My DD wouldn’t drink any of it. And this was 5 days before I went back to work! So I had to trash my stash and start over with heating my expressed BM to kill of the lipase before storing it. DD will take it now, but she absolutely refuses the bottle (which she was introduced to at 4 weeks and took until 8 weeks of age)…she she now gets my lipase-free pumped milk in a cup from daddy or grandma when I am at work.
She’s 12 weeks old and I have nursed her since she was less than 2 minutes old. We’re going strong, despite these BFing “surprises”…
I was surprised at how easy it was to leak milk EVERYWHERE and how useless most nursing pads were!
I was surprised at how easy it was to leak milk EVERYWHERE and how useless most nursing pads were!
I was surprised that I had an inverted nipple on one side–which my daughter did pull out eventually, though she was mad when I first had to make her take that side every second time! I’m also amazed and surprised at how wonderful it is, and I don’t plan on weaning her (now 2 yr old) — after all, some old advice I got given is that although a lot of people seem to think breastfeeding is the problem when it comes to whinyness and clinginess… you can stop if you want but that’s not going to go away!
I was surprised at how easy it was to leak milk EVERYWHERE and how useless most nursing pads were!
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What surprised me the most was how pushy the nurses and lactation consultants were about it. I had already committed to doing it, and I have breastfed my son for over a year now. Before my milk came in, they were in my room every few minutes, forcing me to keep a detailed log about everything and watching every time my baby nursed, manipulating his head and my breast to how they thought I should be doing it. In one way I was appreciative of their help, but it honestly stressed me out so much that I was in tears practically one whole day, thinking I was doing everything all wrong. I think it would be better for them to go a little easy on new moms. My son didn’t even have any problems with his latch and they were still so pushy about everything-the way I held him, if he was on too long or too short of a time, etc. It was honestly so much easier for me to nurse him without the “experts”!
What surprised me the most was how pushy the nurses and lactation consultants were about it. I had already committed to doing it, and I have breastfed my son for over a year now. Before my milk came in, they were in my room every few minutes, forcing me to keep a detailed log about everything and watching every time my baby nursed, manipulating his head and my breast to how they thought I should be doing it. In one way I was appreciative of their help, but it honestly stressed me out so much that I was in tears practically one whole day, thinking I was doing everything all wrong. I think it would be better for them to go a little easy on new moms. My son didn’t even have any problems with his latch and they were still so pushy about everything-the way I held him, if he was on too long or too short of a time, etc. It was honestly so much easier for me to nurse him without the “experts”!
I was surprised at how easy it was to leak milk EVERYWHERE and how useless most nursing pads were!
This post made me laugh out loud! Especially the part about shoving a diaper into your nursing tank and walking around the house with one boob out and no pants. Been there, done that!
Two things that surprised me (and that I hadn’t read about in the books and have to dig a round online to find information about…) were oversupply issues and excess lipase. I have had to deal with both and am glad to finally have a handle on it, but I had never heard of either issue in the books I’ve read on BFing. Like most new mothers, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough milk to feed by baby, let alone pump and store. Turns out, I have A LOT of milk that made baby choke, sputter and cry when latching at first. I also had a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance that made her fussy and have green poops.
We figured all of that out (turns out my pumping to create a stash before heading back to work exacerbated this problem) only to discover that all of my stored milk had excess lipase and made it taste horrible. My DD wouldn’t drink any of it. And this was 5 days before I went back to work! So I had to trash my stash and start over with heating my expressed BM to kill of the lipase before storing it. DD will take it now, but she absolutely refuses the bottle (which she was introduced to at 4 weeks and took until 8 weeks of age)…she she now gets my lipase-free pumped milk in a cup from daddy or grandma when I am at work.
She’s 12 weeks old and I have nursed her since she was less than 2 minutes old. We’re going strong, despite these BFing “surprises”…
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I was surprised that I had an inverted nipple on one side–which my daughter did pull out eventually, though she was mad when I first had to make her take that side every second time! I’m also amazed and surprised at how wonderful it is, and I don’t plan on weaning her (now 2 yr old) — after all, some old advice I got given is that although a lot of people seem to think breastfeeding is the problem when it comes to whinyness and clinginess… you can stop if you want but that’s not going to go away!
I was surprised how much it weirded people out. I was substitute teaching and took my pump with me. Some people were really odd when I told them I needed a place to pump. In the 9 months that I nursed my son I only ran across 2 people who were super supportive and wanted to help. I figured more would be willing to help me out.
It also surprised me how hard it was to pump and keep up when you only get 1 break while substitute teaching. Only pumping once in 8 hours can KILL a supply. If and when I have #2 I will nurse, nurse, nurse while at home and never pump if I’m around him/her. I’ll need the little one to help me keep my supply instead of just pumping all of the time. Hopefully I’ll go the full 12 months (or longer!) next time.
I was surprised to learn after many lactation consultants that I had insufficient glandular development, so I really did have major supply issues. I didn’t know that existed since all of the many many many breastfeeding books never mentioned it could happen. I guess I’m one of these “rare” cases, but it was nice to know I was doing everything I could to make enough milk for my daughter and it was actually necessary to supplement.
What surprised me the most was how pushy the nurses and lactation consultants were about it. I had already committed to doing it, and I have breastfed my son for over a year now. Before my milk came in, they were in my room every few minutes, forcing me to keep a detailed log about everything and watching every time my baby nursed, manipulating his head and my breast to how they thought I should be doing it. In one way I was appreciative of their help, but it honestly stressed me out so much that I was in tears practically one whole day, thinking I was doing everything all wrong. I think it would be better for them to go a little easy on new moms. My son didn’t even have any problems with his latch and they were still so pushy about everything-the way I held him, if he was on too long or too short of a time, etc. It was honestly so much easier for me to nurse him without the “experts”!
I was surprised at how easy it was to leak milk EVERYWHERE and how useless most nursing pads were!
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The thing that surprised me most about breastfeeding is how often it would happen. Before my little one was born I heard all about how they would nurse 8 times a day or more but nothing actually prepares you for it until you’re doing it. Lol, I feel like I’d spent months walking around topless before I’d no sooner finish one nursing session and snatch something to eat and maybe go to the bathroom and she would want to eat again! We just left burp rags laying around the house and I would stuff one on the other side when she nursed – my let down was super strong too and no one told me that when you nursed from one side the other would start too!!!!
What surprised me the most was I am not super mom!
Nursing twins is not an easy thing to do. I struggle every day to give them all I can but still need to suppliment 
They are 3 1/2 months old and I refuse to give up!!!!
What surprised me most is how much it hurt in the beginning and how strong my letdown is. Thank god for lanisoh lanolin cream, it helped a lot. I can feel my letdown every time and if my daughter doesn’t drink fast enough it chokes her and she has to unlatch. When she unlatches, she gets a milk shower, lol, along with myself and the bed, chair, etc.
I guess I should also say I plan and hope to BF baby #2!
What surprised me most was that I was completely unable to do it – my milk never came in. Sadly, since this was my first, I had no idea my daughter wasn’t getting anything til she was admitted to the hospital nearly starving to death. I did learn a lot about fenugreek and other supplements though!
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It’s strange to see just how many sites the internet has about this topic! I don’t know if I will ever need to come back here, but it is good to know I found the one that provides some practical info if this ever comes up for me another time
I was surprised how difficult it was. All my sister-in-laws were so natural and carefree about it and how wonderful it was. I wanted to soooo bad. I made it 6 weeks until I had to pump to keep my supply up. When I dried up, I was so sad. My son loved it and enjoyed the snuggling at night during feedings, but he would get cranky because he was never full. I am determined next time I will be more diligent.
I’m pregnant with my first – and plan to breastfeed after having had a breast reduction. As I do my best to prepare, I’m surprised that there’s really no way of knowing if I will be able to breastfeed, or at what level! I’ve done a lot of reading, connected with local LCs, and am planning an herbal regiment – but really all I can do is wait and see what my body does!
We had our first little one in Germany and I was surprised at how open and public they were about breastfeeding. It didnt bother me, it actually made me feel so much more comfortable feeding our daughter whenever and wherever I needed to. I covered up unlike most people I saw, but not freaking out about feeding in public with our first child made the experience more relaxing and special!
I was surprised my first time by how uncomfortable a good strong latch really is, at first. I thought since BFing was natural, it wouldn’t hurt at all. Well, I was wrong on that note. I was surprised my second time around with how abundant my milk supply was. My breasts were HUGE even though he seemed to nurse constantly, and I was always leaking. I mean, always, and yes spraying too.
i was surprised at how unnatural it felt at the beginning. I was expecting to instinctively know what to do and that my son would latch on with no problems. I was fortunate to deliver in a breast-feeding friendly hospital with knowledgeable nurses – at first it was odd to have a stranger helping me, but I am SO glad that I asked for help that first day. Breastfeeding began to feel more natural with each feeding and by the time we left the hospital, I felt confident and comfortable thanks to all the help the nurses provided.
what surprised me was how little milk there was at first!
The first time around I was surprised at just how much milk I was producing and that the mere sound of my baby crying would open the floodgates to milk literally POURING out of my breasts.
THe second time around I was surprised that it wasn’t just like riding a bike. Definitely had some latch issues the first whole week – to the point of me actually eyeballing that sample can of formula in the cupboard. But we persevered – and even though some feedings it took longer to get a good latch than it did to actually feed.
What surprised me most was the pain despite a good latch! It went away around 4-6 weeks just like everyone told me though. I’m glad that I persevered and that my daughter is still nursing at 11 months.
I was surprised at how funny a hungry baby can be when hunting for boobies. My daughter keeps banging her head around my boobs until she finds the nipple, and then watch out! It’s like a rabid wolverine descending on a family of cute fuzzy bunnies.
I am pregnant with my first, but have been surprised at how few nursing bras and good nursing tanks are available for moms whose ladies have grown during pregnancy to outside the normal sizing! It seems almost impossible to find any bra in a store that is larger than DD, and the flimsy tank tops do NOT give enough support. You’d think that most places would recognize that breastfeeding mammas have larger than normal cup sizes!
I am currently pregnant with my first child, but I plan on breastfeeding. I am surprised how many people don’t breastfeed anymore (most of my friends do not/have not), and they seem to think I’m crazy when I say it is what I want to do! Thank you for posting all of this, I am definitely bookmarking it as I embark on this journey
Everything…so true! Especially about the pilllows! And the leaking…I leaked horribly for 6 months! Just random let downs…sigh. Being a new mother, I was distraught at first with the typical anxiety about whether or not my baby was getting enough since there weren’t ounce lines on my breasts indicating how much she’d eaten! I will not lie, the first 4 weeks were rough. The sore nips, the engorgement, the painful let-downs…But 9 months later, I wouldn’t trade that special, quiet time we have for anything!
We had a rough first few months. It turns out that there was still debris in my uterus so the milk wasn’t flowing well. The tremendous pain every time I nursed (which was 20+ times/day) was just unreal. We stuck with it and I still have a nursing 15 months old. It’s still not easy and I don’t have an overwhelming amount of milk like it seems others do, but I’m doing what I can.
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I went into breast feeding very well prepared. I had read lots of information on the internet and in books, took two breast feeding classes which I did not find very helpful but I was as prepared as could be. What surprised me was how unhelpful my lactation consultants were! My little girl and I had mastered one of my breasts without any problems, the other though had been pulled flat by a scar from a surgery years ago and she just could not latch! I asked several times for a nipple shield and the LC’s were very resistant about it and made us struggle to use the flat nipple telling me to change positions or a different hold. I was very surprised they were so reluctant to give me an aide if it had not been for the research I had conducted on my own I would have given up. Needless to say I did not give up and 12 hours before they discharged me they finally granted my request! We had to work a little bit to get the supply on my one breast right and it was painful dealing with the engorgement on the other that had been the sole provider of milk until that time but now we are doing great!
I expected it to come naturally to me and my baby. It did NOT! We got through it though and he nursed til my milk dried up due to pregnancy at 17 months.
[...] You will need a lot of pillows . A lot of pillows . Did I mention a lot of pillows ? Breastfeeding pillows don’t lift a newborn up high enough for proper positioning. It’s helpful to have an extra pillow under or on top of your …Next Page [...]
I expected to love it, but not at all the way I did. I worked as an infant teacher for years prior to having my daughter, and breastfeeding helped form a special bond that my shared lil’ ones didn’t have! I’m looking forward to breastfeeding our adopted lil’ blessing soon!
The thing that surprised me the most was that it was not natural for me. I never thought that breastfeeding would make your breasts crack and bleed if you did not have a good latch! Thank goodness for my husband who would help and encourage me. Also, I called our local Public Health Nurse who spent a long time with me on the phone. Basically, all I needed to do was make sure that her mouth was open, as big as possible, before latching.
Thank goodness that I stuck with it because she nursed until 1 1/2 years old (which was half way through my second pregnancy) and I was successful in breastfeeding second child from the very beginning! I love breastfeeding and a good latch…for me and my children!!!