As a rule, even before the birth of the baby, the mother thinks about whether she will breastfeed. Despite the fact that most women during pregnancy are sure that they will not have problems with lactation and application, often life makes its own adjustments. And in order to maintain natural feeding, in some cases, mother needs to work hard. In fact, most of the difficulties arise due to the fact that young parents do not have enough knowledge about how to properly feed infants.
Often, the first problems arise in the hospital. Although, it would seem, in a medical institution where there are dozens of people who can help, they should not arise. But in practice, it turns out that the mother who has just given birth has no one to teach how to put her baby to her breast, explain how to properly feed babies, choose a convenient position or help to set off. It is due to a lack of basic knowledge and lack of experience that problems arise: a young mother is afraid that her baby is starving and starts to give a mixture.
If the baby spends a lot of time on the chest (and this is natural in the first months of his life), many relatives begin to assume that the mother has little milk and the baby needs to be fed. At the slightest concern of the newborn, the relatives constantly remind him that he is hungry. Even if this is so, the problem is not so difficult to solve: give the baby the breast, the more it sucks, the faster milk will start to be produced. It’s not worth listening to the common advice on how to often feed a baby, if they come down to giving more often than 1 time every 3 hours, is prohibited. It is better to ask the advisers how long they have maintained lactation in this mode.
But the question of how to properly feed infants is not limited to just finding out the frequency of application. No less debate is caused by the time of the first feeding, and the question of whether to give the baby water. Most modern pediatricians no longer insist on the introduction of juices and fruit purees in 1-2 months, everyone agreed with the recommendations that WHO gives, so babies try the first products at the age of 6 months. But not everything is so simple with water: breastfeeding consultants are categorically against additional fluids, and doctors disagree. Some of them advise to solder crumbs on especially hot days. Just do not try to replace the nightly feedings with water or tea, this will be the first step to ending lactation.
If you do not know whom to listen to and cannot establish a newborn's regimen, ask how to feed babies correctly. Modern experts unanimously reiterate that it is better to do this on demand. Of course, if your baby eats the mixture from a bottle, then try to maintain the set interval, as a rule, it is from 3 to 5 hours, depending on the age of the child and the amount of mixture consumed. If you have exclusively breastfeeding, then do not starve the baby, keeping the time intervals set for children who are eating the mixture. You do not know how much he ate the last time. True, many pediatricians agree that at least 30 minutes should be a break between applications.
If you experience problems with lactation, pain, cracks in your chest, talk to your breastfeeding counselors before buying a box of the mixture. They will tell you what to do in each of the situations, how to feed the baby with breast milk for cracks and how to relieve pain.