About Milk
Understanding Milk Feeding
Whether breast or bottle feeding, one of the keys to helping a baby sleep well at night is to feed them milk frequently and flexibly throughout the day.
This is a very different concept to 'marathon feeding', where women can find themselves endlessly feeding a hungry, frustrated baby who doesn't seem to be settling. In these circumstances there is an underlying problem that needs sorting.
Differently, we are talking about giving your baby the chance to feed often and for varying lengths of time, as you go about your day. Sometimes this will just be a snack and at other times a full feed.
Putting your baby to the breast frequently, will give him protein and calories during the day that will sustain him well at night. It will support your milk supply and help your baby be content.
Important Things to Know About Breastfeeding
Are you aware that the size of your breasts are not a reliable indicator of whether you can breastfeed? Women with delicately sized breasts can feed beautifully, as can many women with flat nipples. Every woman has her own different set of breasts, and every baby has their own facial structure and individual appetite.
Bottle Feeding
For your own personal reasons or circumstances, or sometimes because of your baby's health, you may find you arrive at a decision to bottle feed. This can be either with breastmilk or formula.
Some women choose to express their milk and bottle feed it to their baby, often in the setting of having a multiple birth or typically when returning to work.
Know that if you choose or need to formula feed, that infant formula will provide your baby with the protein, lipids and carbohydrates he needs for growth and development and that it has been prepared to an FDA standard composition.
What is of primary importance is that an infant learns to associate her feeding with an abundance of pleasurable sensory input. Being held closely by their parent, offered loving, smiling eye contact, and a milk flow that is paced to their cues, creates that environment.
Breastmilk Benefits
The thick syrupy colostrum your baby takes from your breast in the initial days, will provide her with dense protein, nutrients and sugar. Importantly too, it will coat the mucosal surfaces of her tummy and intestines and block certain bacteria from causing intestinal inflammation. The antibodies that you have built up in the past from your exposure to disease, now pass through to your baby in your milk and give her protection.
Breastmilk uniquely changes its composition as your baby grows, providing the right balance of proteins, fats and calories for his developmental needs and developing brain over time, supporting his best IQ.
Across the first year or two of life, you will find that your baby will not just feed from your breast, but also find comfort at your breast when upset or in pain. The risk of SIDS lowers and he has a lowered risk of gut, respiratory and ear infections, as well as dental malocclusion.
By breastfeeding, you are also less likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer, heart disease and high blood pressure, obesity or diabetes later in life. However, the most immediately felt benefit is that the hormones released during breastfeeding at night help a mother to fall back to sleep more readily.
Expressing Milk
Before your baby is born it is helpful to become familiar with how your breasts feel and to learn how to express. Expressing is a skill you may need if your nipples become damaged or if bub is unable to feed directly from you at some point. Or if she becomes jaundiced and sleepy at the breast and needs phototherapy.
For most women, their milk 'comes in' around day 4, sometimes earlier if its not your first baby, and sometimes later - especially if you hemorrhaged with the birth, had trouble with high blood pressure or are diabetic.
After the birth, the breasts begin to swell as the blood vessels fill to supply the milk making cells and this can lead to engorgement if bub is not sucking frequently. A tight areola region will make it difficult for bub to compress into the breast, however there are simple measures to help you get around that.
Becoming familiar with the textural changes and lumps in the lactating breast will help you manage for complications.
In the last weeks of pregnancy some women choose to gather colostrum which has been secreting in their breasts from around 16 weeks. This can be helpful to give to your baby if a medical need arises at birth, where formula would otherwise need to be given. However, expressing colostrum before the birth is not safe for all pregnant women to do, so it is recommended that you chat to your doctor about your own personal circumstances.
You can view a helpful online resource for expressing at ndcinstitute.com.au
Worried About Your Supply?
If you feel your milk supply is low it can help talking to a lactation consultant to ensure the baby is being held to the breast in such a way that there is no breast tissue twist or drag that can interfere with good milk transfer.
Take time to ensure you are offering the breast frequently and flexibly throughout the day - both of them, close to a dozen times - and that you aren't sleeping through feeds at night.
Eating oats in your daily diet, taking rest where you can and drinking a good amount of water across the day can help.
Your GP can investigate for hormonal imbalances, especially related to your prolactin and thyroid levels, and can also rule out polycystic ovarian disease or whether any placental membrane has been left behind in the uterus, tricking the brain into thinking it is not time to lactate. Talking to your GP about trying the drug Domperidone may sometimes assist.
You might like to try 'power-pumping' for a few days, where you commit to doing back to back pumping for about an hour each day: 10 minutes on, 5 - 10 minutes off for 3 cycles. However, taking a relaxed approach to feeding, where you offer your baby the breast frequently and flexibly, for varying lengths of feeds across the day is your greatest tool for maintaining a good milk supply.
You are encouraged to turn your focus away from advice based on old theories around 'feed windows' and whether the clock says a feed is due and instead feed your baby according to his cues.