All About the Boobs... what I've learned about feeding my baby

This past month Chris and I have been taking a great antenatal class in our local neighborhood. (Antenatal is apparently a very British term, I'm thinking the American term equivalent would be birth class?) The classes are run by a national charity called the National Childbirth Trust, and though the classes were not free, or cheap, they were pretty informative, helpful, and most importantly, we met some great other new parents. There were eight other couples, all of us have due dates within 15 days of each other, and we all live within 1/2 hour of each other. (One of the couples lives literally right around the corner!) Class was also like a mini UN - Greek, Australian, Portuguese, New Zealander, Iranian, American, and only half British. And although I felt the coverage of labour and delivery was scanty and repetitive (there was no discussion of the third stage of delivery or perineal massage, much to my dismay), the information on breast-feeding was VERY helpful. This makes sense because our instructor - a middle-aged bourgeoise hippie who lay on the floor moaning in fake-labour pain at least once a class - is a lactation consultant.

Useful facts about breast-feeding:

 - Newborn babies need to feed at least once every three hours. You shouldn't try to schedule the baby's feedings, except you should set an alarm to go off every three hours in the night so that if your baby doesn't wake on his or her own to feed you can wake them.

- After baby is done feeding on one breast you should always offer the other. Then start with that breast the next feeding.

- A baby doesn't need to feed for a certain amount of time. But if your baby is at your breast for 45- 1 hour, he probably isn't latched properly. When babies don't latch properly they don't get as much milk, and your boobs get unnecessarily sore.

- Your nipples shouldn't hurt when baby is breast-feeding. If they do, he isn't latched on properly.

- Baby's head should always be tilted BACK when feeding. (Do this now. Put your chin to your chest and try to open your mouth and swallow. Go ahead, do it! How does that feel?)

- Don't support baby's head when feeding either, just hold them very snug and firm against your body.

- It is really important that baby's first experience with feeding be positive. Right after birth, let them lay against your chest and find your nipple on their own - don't force them on or let a midwife/nurse force them on. We watched a video of a newborn lying on his mom's chest immediately after birth and he just instinctively crawled his little head towards her nipple - it is amazing!

- If feeding your newborn every two hours (or more) seems excessive, think of it this way.... When was the last time you put anything in your mouth today? Even a sip of water? Because breast-milk is baby's everything... and with a stomach the size of a walnut in the first weeks, it makes sense they get hungry and thirsty at least every two hours!

- Crying is a last resort for hunger. Look for rooting with the mouth, putting hands in mouth, general restlessness - and try to feed before he cries.

- The WHO and all other major health groups recommend exclusive breast-feeding (no formula!) for 6 months. Only 1-2% of British women do this.

- Frequent feeding through the night is really important for establishing a good milk supply so that you can successfully feed for those six months (and beyond.)

- At six months, solids can start to be introduced but you should still be breast-feeding too.


I feel very lucky to be able to be unemployed through the first year of little boy's life. I don't know how I would cope with leaving him after 3 months' (or even 6 months!) maternity leave. I also don't know how I could possibly exclusively breast-feed if I had to go back to work after 3 months! I don't think it's possible, unless you pump and store your milk every couple of hours while at work. My mom swears she exclusively breast feed me when she started going back to work when I was 3 months old, but then I asked her, well didn't you supplement with formula? and she said she couldn't really remember. She didn't pump at work, but would run home during her lunch break to feed me, and then would race home every evening early. Sounds too hard! I'm so lucky, this I know.

Does this baby come with a user manual?

I started a new pregnancy / mum to a very young baby group for my local expat women's club, called Bumps and Babies, and for this past month's meeting I had everyone send a title for a book they found particularly useful for pregnancy, labor, baby's 1st year and/or breastfeeding.

I then compiled the list (with a lot of my own titles thrown in there) and printed out copies for everyone at the meeting.

I also did a very insensitive thing and wrote an asterik and a disparaging comment by the name of a baby book I (and many, many others) feel very strongly against. "The Contented Little Baby Book" is written by a child-less woman who advocates having a very strict scheduling of feedings for baby from birth. This flies 100% in the face of all medical professional's advice that I've ever read about breastfeeding, most of whom say that - especially during the "fourth trimester" of the first three months of baby's life - that all feedings should be baby-led (aka - and this sounds so very intuitive to me that I feel silly saying it - feed baby when baby is hungry and not because - omg! it's 3pm and that is his scheduled time to feed!)

Granted I have never taken care of a new-born before (so who am I to judge whether this woman's, Gina Ford, advice is good or not?) BUT my NCT instructor has, and she went on a whole diatribe against this book, and ones like it, that advocate for strict schedules for newborns, saying she sees at her clinic all the time under-fed babies who are failing to thrive because their parents follow strict schedules like Ford advocates. Like my NCT instructor says, newborns just went from being continuously held and fed 100% of the time in the womb, to being in this cold new world where they must suck and digest their own food, and be left alone some of the time! Add to this the fact that newborns are not developmentally ready to be born yet (read "The Happiest Baby on the Block" or any other book that talks about the "fourth trimester") - and you have a poor, helpless infant who can only understand love, warmth and comfort - but certainly not that you cannot feed him right now because you must wait 3 hours between feeds or else! All babies are different and maybe Ford's schedule works for some but I do not think it is a good book for new mothers to read thinking that they must do what Ford says, especially when much of what she says can be detrimental to the establishment of a good milk supply.

So there are all these reasons why I wrote that comment, but I shouldn't have. It hurt the feelings of the woman who recommended it (who DID, btw, follow Ford's advice!) and I just should have kept my big mouth shut. Because I really liked this woman and would have liked to be friends but now I think she thinks I'm just a huge bitch. Ugh. Is one lost friendship worth my moral integrity? I feel so strongly against having pregnant women read this book that I feel highly like it WAS a question of moral integrity to put that warning there. But there were only 5 people at the meeting, and only 1 other first-time mom. So, so much for my moral integrity in saving 1 person from reading it. Why can't I leave well enough alone?

But without further ado, here is the list. I personally highly recommend "The Happiest Baby on the Block" (given with much praise to me by my cousin, a mother of two), "Fatherhood: The Truth" (laugh-out-loud hysterical, and the only book DH has read cover-to-cover all year long, and with no prompting by me!), and lastly "Birth Skills" by Juju Sundin (even if you do want an epidural, her skills are helpful for early labor!) 


Bumps and Babies - Book List


Baby’s first year:

The Baby Book, by William Sears, MD and Martha Sears, MD
The Wonder Weeks, by Hetty Van de Rijt and Frans Plooij
The Happiest Baby on the Block, by Harvey Karp, MD
Brain Rules for Baby, by John Medina
The Contented Little Baby Book, by Gina Ford **
The Yummy Mummy Survival Guide, by Liz Fraser
What to Expect during the First Year, by Murkoff, Eisenberg & Hathaway

Pregnancy:

What to Expect When You’re Expecting, by Heidi Murkoff, MD
The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy, by Vicki Iovine

Labour:

Birth Skills, by Juju Sundin with Sarah Murdoch
New Active Birth, by Janet Balaskas

Breastfeeding:



So That's What They're For: Breastfeeding Basics, by Janet Tamaro
The Nursing Mother’s Companion, by Kathleen Huggins
The Breastfeeding Book, by William Sears, MD and Martha Sears, MD

For dads:

Fatherhood: the Truth, by Marcus Berkman

Websites & blogs:

alphamom.com - in particular the “Advice Smackdown” column
rookiemoms.com
mumsnet.com
babycentre.co.uk
babycenter.com

** A very controversial book: Medical professionals say following Ford’s advice can prevent the establishment of a good milk supply if you are breastfeeding. The National Childbirth Trust strongly advocates baby-led feeding and avoiding a strict schedule in the first three months. (My NCT instructor says she sees new babies in her practice all the time who are under-nourished because the parents are trying to adhere to a strict schedule of feedings instead of listening to their baby’s signals.) That being said many new parents find Ford’s book helpful, as evidenced by its appearance on this list, and Ford has many devoted followers.