My methods for successful breast-feeding

The key to successful breast-feeding is getting off to the right start, and, as you will have already read, ‘little and often’ after the birth is essential to helping establish a good milk supply. But putting the baby to the breast little and often will not guarantee you a good milk supply if your baby is not positioned on the breast properly. While in the hospital you will be guided by your midwife and the nurses on how to latch your baby on to the breast. But as you will more than likely leave the hospital quite soon after giving birth, I would strongly advise that you get help from an experienced breast-feeding counsellor. There are several organisations which will arrange for someone to visit you in your home and spend time with you while you are feeding your baby to ensure that you are getting the positioning on the breast right. They will, if necessary, make several visits to you to help overcome any problems that you may encounter in the early days.

I would also highly recommend an excellent DVD by one of the leading breast-feeding counsellors in the country. Clare Byam-Cook, author of What to Expect When You’re Breast-feeding … And What If You Can’t?, shows how to get to grips with breast-feeding in her DVD.

I advise all my mothers to start on day one by offering five minutes each side every three hours, increasing the time by a few minutes each day until the milk comes in. The three hours is calculated from the beginning of one feed to the beginning of the next feed. Somewhere between the third and fifth day, your milk will be in, and you should have increased the baby’s sucking time on the breast to 15–20 minutes. Many babies will now be getting enough milk from the first breast, and be content to go three hours before needing a feed again. For example, if you start at 7pm the next feed will start at 10pm. However, if you find your baby is demanding food long before three hours have passed, he should of course be fed, and also offered both breasts at each feed, if he still remains unsettled. Once your milk is in, it is important that you make sure he has emptied the first breast totally before putting him to the second breast. In my experience mothers who change breasts too soon end up feeding their baby too much fore milk, which I believe is one of the main causes of babies never seeming satisfied and suffering from colic. It may take a sleepy baby 20–25 minutes to reach the very important hind milk (which is at least three times fattier than the fore milk) and to empty the breast.

Other babies may reach the hind milk much more quickly. Be guided by your baby as to how long he needs to get a good feed. If your baby feeds well, within the times I suggest, is happy and content between feeds and you are getting lots of wet nappies, he is obviously getting enough milk in the time he is on the breast.

During the first few days, between 6am and midnight, wake your baby every three hours for short feeds. This will ensure that the feeding gets off to the best possible start in time for when the milk comes in. Feeding your baby three-hourly will help build up your milk supply much faster, and if he is fed enough during the day, your baby will be much more likely to go to sleep for longer periods between feeds in the night. It also avoids the mother becoming too exhausted, which, as I’ve said, is another major factor in breast-feeding going wrong. As with anything in life, success only comes from building a good foundation. All my mothers who establish three-hourly feeds in the hospital find that by the end of the first week a pattern has emerged. Then, very quickly, they can adapt their baby’s feeding pattern to my first routine. The first breast-feeding routine (here) not only helps you establish a good milk supply, but will also enable you to learn all your baby’s many different needs: hunger, tiredness, boredom and overstimulation.

The main reasons my breast-feeding methods are so successful are:

• Feeding your baby three-hourly in the early days for shorter periods will gradually allow your nipples to get used to his sucking. It will also help ease the pain of engorgement when your milk comes in.
• Feeding little and often will help avoid the baby spending hours sucking on an empty breast trying to satisfy his hunger, which often occurs when a baby is allowed to go longer than three hours between feeds in the first week.
• A newborn baby’s tummy is tiny and his needs can only be satisfied by feeding little and often. If you feed your baby three-hourly between 6am and midnight, the ‘feeding all night syndrome’ should never occur. Even if a very small baby is capable of going one longer spell in between feeds, following my advice ensures that this will happen to all babies at night and not during the day.
• Successful breast-feeding can only be achieved if a mother feels relaxed and comfortable. This is impossible if, having just given birth, you become exhausted from being awake and feeding all night.
• Newborn babies do not know the difference between day and night. Your baby will be able to learn the difference much sooner if you differentiate between daytime feeding and night-time feeding and do not allow him to sleep for long spells between feeds from 7am to 7pm.