There are nurses and nursing specialists in the hospital ready to assist, advise and guide you on how to breastfeed your newborn. You will likely need their guidance because most new mothers will find breastfeeding for the first time difficult and challenging.

Experienced mothers make breast feeding look effortless and easy. Do not let that fool you into thinking breast feeding for the first time comes easily and naturally. Remember both your baby and yourself are new at this so do not expect your first attempt at breastfeeding to be successful. Instead, give yourself and your baby some time to learn breastfeeding. Soon with enough patience and practise, you will find breast feeding a natural, easy and effortless process.

With that in mind, try to remain calm, relax, be patient and do not let frustration build up as tension tends to make breast feeding more difficult. It prevents milk let-down even if your breast is full.

Your baby too will struggle as much as you do during the first few tries at breast feeding. He or she will have to learn how to latch on to your nipple properly. Your newborn may show cry or fuss being unable to suck your milk during the first few attempts. You’ll find your patience and persistence tested. Again, you should remain calm and relax despite all the fuss.

Some mothers have inverted nipples and wonder if it complicates breastfeeding. Inverted nipples require preparation before breastfeeding sessions to make them protude. Your doctor or nursing specialist will advice you to try severals methods which may include the use of breast pump, breast shield and manually massaging your nipple area with Hoffman technique to help your nipple protude fully.

Any concerns about your newborn baby not getting enough milk in those first few breastfeeding sessions is unnecessary. Newborn babies do not need much milk. In fact, babies aren’t born hungry at least not until third or fourth day of life. The seemingly tiny amount of colostrum your breast is producing for your newborn’s initial feedings is nourishing and satisfying enough. In fact, colostrum is extremely nourishing for your newborn and provides needed antibodies not yet produced by your newborn baby.

Breastfeeding mothers should maintain a healthy and adequate intake of fluids daily. Drinking more water is not shown to increase milk production. Just make sure you drink water when you’re thirsty to avoid dehydration.

Get yourself positioned comfortably before you start breastfeeding your baby. A pillow may be necessary to provide support because you’re likely to cradle your baby for a long period of time while nursing.

It is more comfortable to bring your baby closer to your breast than you leaning towards him especially when you’re breastfeeding in a sitting position. That way your back is well supported and you won’t get tired easily. Place a pillow on your lap and rest your cradling arm on it to raise your baby towards your breast.

Hold the part of your breast near the areola using your thumb and forefinger. Guide the tip of your breast towards your baby and tease her lips with it. Your baby’s natural instinct will guide her to the direction of the tickling sensation so rubbing your nipple gently up and down your baby’s lips encourage her to open her mouth and start nursing.

When your baby opens her mouth, place your nipple into her mouth to latch on. Newborns nursing for the first time needs time to practise latching onto your nipple, especially the areola securely. The areola is the area behind your nipple and it needs to be stimulated for your breast to excrete milk. If your baby fails to latch on to the areola, the milk glands under the areola may not receive enough pressure to release breast milk. You could end up with sore nipples if your baby sucks only the nipple area. Break your baby’s suction and try inserting the tip of your breast again until your baby can latch on as close to the areola as possible.

Observe your baby’s nose at all times, making sure your breast is not blocking her nose. Using your fingers, press the part of your breast that is blocking your baby’s nose to give her adequate breathing space.

Here are signs to look for to know if your baby is suckling properly. Your baby’s cheeks is showing constant movements of suckling breast milk. You may even be able to hear sounds of her swallowing.

Some mothers may find that the amount of breast milk excreted during feeding is so plentiful that their baby is choking. If and when that happens, stop breastfeeding and express some of your milk by using a pump or your hands.

Another situation where you should consider expressing your breast milk is when your baby is lazy at nursing. Some babies would latch on, nurse for less than a few minutes and doze off. You can consider pumping out remaining breast milk into a plastic container and refridgerate it up to 48 hours ready for supplementary feeds later.. When stored in the freezer, expressed breast milk can be stored much longer up to two weeks.

I still believe a lot of women feel that they can consume whatever they may like during breast feeding. Even though it is true that some stongly favorite foods can change the taste of your milk, a lot of babies appear to love the changes of breast milk flavours. Sometimes, your baby may get irritable at the breast after you consume certain foods. Whenever you discover this happening, just keep off that specific food.

The basic wrongdoers during breast feeding include chocolate, spices, citrus fruits, garlic,
Chili pepper, lime, gassy vegetables, and fruits with laxative type effects, such as prunes and cherries.

You can consume a cup or two of coffee a day, while too much caffeine may interfere with your baby’s sleep and even get him or her cranky. Keep in mind, caffeine is found in many soda’s, tea, and even over the counter type medicine too.

It is alright to get an alcoholic drink every so often, although taking more than one drink can increase your blood alcohol level, placing the alcohol into your breast milk.

Whenever you are planning to consume more than one drink at once, it is better to wait two hours or more per drink before you resume any type of lactating or breast feeding. There is no need to pump and dump unless your breasts are full and its time to feed your baby. When breast feeding, any type of heavy drinking had better be kept off.

Before you actually leave off any foods from your diet, you should speak to your doctor. Wheneverb you avoid certain foods and it causes a nutritional imbalance, you may need to see a nutritionist for advice about consuming other foods or obtaining nutritional supplements.

I noticed she’s sleeping longer during the past two weeks. Most of the time, she would sleep right through the night, from 8-9pm to 6-7am without feeding. Whenever she does cry during the night, I just give her some water and she would doze off again. She is bound to wake up before 8am in the morning due to hunger.

Baby Clarisse is definitely sleeping better after weaning her from breast milk.  When she was still being breastfed, she would cry 4- 5 times a night wanting to nurse back to sleep.  It’s quite troublesome and tiring for me too because it took me at least 20-30 mins to nurse baby Clarisse to sleep back.

Last week my mom found a way to feed baby Clarisse milk. My mom will turn on “In The Night Garden” toddler TV show and narrates to baby Clarisse. Surprisingly she would sit still and keep drinking her milk while listening the story. I used to feed her milk by spoon because she drinks very slow from a sipping cup. Now whenever baby Clarisse need to drink milk,  we’ll let her watch  ”In The Night Garden”. I know it’s not an advisable practise to rely on TV to tempt her but when you’re all out of ideas, you’d give in to anything that works.

It’s 9pm now. Baby Clarisse hit the sack at 8pm sharp. She started to cry incessantly after 5 minutes, roll all over the bed and just refused to sleep. It took more than 45 minutes of crying and struggling until she’s too exhausted to do anything but to close her eyes and sleep. If I were to give nurse her, it would probably take no more than 15 minutes for her to doze off completely.

I’m expecting her to cry for a feeding at around 3am. It’s been that pattern for the past few weeks. Baby Clarisse is very reluctant to drink her milk. I’ve changed from Novolac (due to previous bout of constipation) to EnfaGrow formula and she seems to like the latter more but still very fussy drinking her milk. It takes more than 45 minutes to drink her bottle of milk which drives me nuts during the wee hours of dawn. Plus I’m suffering from a sorethroat for a few days now.

Time to down some antibiotic pills now. Then I’ll hit the sack immediately before another round of feeding session at 3am.

They say weaning breast-fed babies is tough. It’s no joke I tell you. Before weaning, I could easily nurse baby Clarisse back to sleep whenever she demands for it at night. But now, I have to do all sorts of things to distract her so that she’d slip a few sips of milk at a time. To finish the entire bottle, it takes around an hour. This is a nightly ordeal and has been going on for weeks.

At 13 months now, I believe baby Clarisse still needs her daily intake of milk and it would be too early to wean entirely. I would’ve given up trying to make her drink her milk if she’s older than two.

I yearn for a good night’s sleep so much. A massage therapy. A weekend away from home, a short vacation perhaps. Anything that would mend my exhausted and stressed out mind.

More on my struggle with weaning baby Clarrisse from breastfeeding soon …

FOLIC ACID

Also referred to as folate, folic acid is one of the very first and widely prescribed supplement to pregnant woman. It is also given to women who intend to conceive and should be taken one month before conception until the end of first trimester of pregnancy. In fact, I was adviced to start taking folic acid when I wanted to start conceiving. A whole six months before I managed to conceive baby Clarisse.

Why the need for folic acid? Sufficient folic acid supplementation is crucial to protect against neural tube defects. The lack of folate could cause neural tube defects in an embryo during early part of pregnancy. It can cause birth defects severe enough to result in foetus fatality. That is why doctors strictly prescribe folic acid to ensure pregnant women get sufficient levels of folic acid to prevent neural tube defects. No less than 400mcg every day.

Apart from taking folic acid supplement as prescribed by your doctor, you can also get your daily dietary folate intake from five servings of fruits and vegetables and fortified food every day.

VITAMIN A

Vitamin A can be derived from two sources: plant-based foods and animal products. Plant-based Vitamin A is known as beta-carotene whereas those derived from animal products are retinyl esters.

Vitamin A found in most supplements are derived from animal products which can cause birth defects in the children of pregnant women if consumed in excess, over 10000 IU to be exact. Pregnant women should only consume pre-natal multi-vitamin supplement prescribed by their OB. The daily recommended intake of vitamin A in prenatal vitamins should not exceed 5000IU as many foods contain preformed vitamin A.

Beta-carotene on the other hand, found in fruits and vegetables, is a safe source of vitamin A for pregnant women. There is currently no tolerable upper intake level for beta-carotene because of it’s non-toxicity nature.

Carrots and spinach contains an abundant amount of Vitamin A. Pregnant women should consume a diet rich in vegetables and fruit. In fact, an average carrot provides 15,000 IU of safe beta-carotene form of vitamin A.

CALCIUM AND PHOSPHORUS

As the foetus grows, calcium plays an important role in fetal bone formation and structure. Phosphorus is needed to form the structure of both DNA and RNA.

Calcium supplements are prescribed by your obstetrician to prevent insufficient calcium level. For pregnant women, if there is not enough calcium in your body, calcium and lead are extracted from the mother’s bones and enters the blood stream. This would pose a risk of damaging the nervous system of the growing foetus. At a later stage of your life, you might experience higher risk of osteoporosis.

Although your pre-natal multi-vitamin supplement may contain calcium, your obstetrician would likely prescribe separate calcium pills for you during your entire pregnancy.

MINERALS: IRON, ZINC AND IODINE

Iron

Pregnant women are prone to iron deficiency. It is a common occurence especially during the last six weeks of pregnancy when you are unlikely to get sufficient iron from even the best iron-clad diet. If you experience severe morning sickness during the earlier stage of pregnancy, carrying twins, conceived again shortly after giving birth and experience heavy menstrual flow before pregnancy, you are at a higher risk of iron deficiency.

Why is your iron requirement considerably higher when you’re pregnant? Simply because iron is crucial in making blood for you, your baby and placenta. When you’re pregnant your body’s blood requirement goes up considerably.

Take adequate vitamin C too as it is needed for absorption of iron into your body. supplementation, however, can interfere with your body’s ability to absorb zinc from food. Therefore, it is common for zinc supplements to be given alongside iron supplements.

Zinc

Pregnant women needs adequate level of zinc to prevent preterm births and to a lesser extent, ensure healthy babies and smoother deliveries. Your pre-natal vitamins will contain sufficient zinc supplementation

It is common for zinc supplements to be given alongside iron supplements because extra iron interferes with your body’s ability to absorb zinc from food.

Iodine

As for the role of iodine during pregnancy, according to the WHO, the lack of iodine is the single greatest cause of mental retardation in babies. Growing foetus uses their mother’s iodine to develop thyroid hormones and allows the brain to grow normally. Your pregnancy iodine intake requirement is available in pre-natal supplement.

Having seen the immediate effect of lack of fibre, I’ve got to make sure she gets her daily dose of fibre to promote healthy bowel movements.

A few days earlier, my neighbour suggested Hazeline snow (the original one). She applied it to her baby’s face milk rash and found it to be an effective remedy. I don’t know how effective is it because I haven’t try it out.

What I did try is this. It’s an advice from a good friend of mine. I regularly wiped my baby’s face with chinese tea and within days, my baby’s milk rash/salive rash subsided. Much better than using steroids if you ask me.

I’d brew a cup of chinese tea every moring and use it to wipe her face after feeding session or when there’s saliva around her mouth. It might take several days for the rashes to fade away.

VideoJug: Tips For Breastfeeding In Public

It is most frustrating when she fool arounds when my breast milk starts to let-down. My breast milk would drop onto her shirt and face. Her shirt would end up drenched in milk and I’d have to wipe her face afterwards.

Sometimes she would forget to let go before she turns around and it makes my nipple so painful when that happens. I have to keep telling my baby to drink her milk and gently push her head toward my breast until she wants no more.

When I’m out shopping, trying to feed baby Clarisse in the baby room is a hassle. You know, the usual baby room decor – colourful and bright wallpapers filled with cute images of flowers, animals and the lot. Baby room decorations are usually very attractive and distracting to a baby, Clarisse would keep staring at the wallpaper around her. I have never successfully breastfeed baby Clarisse in those fancy baby rooms. Not even once now that I think about it. I’d avoid baby rooms altogether if possible. I would not go for a baby room to nurse baby Clarisse. Instead, I just use a baby sling to nurse her whenever we’re in a shopping complex.

Babies aged two to six months are notorious to have this bad habit of pulling off the breast when distracted ever so slightly. It has something to do with their eyesight I read. When babies reaches their second month, their vision improves by quite a huge margin. They start to see things around them much more clearly. And with this sudden ability to see all the interesting things around them, it sends their curiosity working overtime. At the expense of their concentration come nursing time.

I’m also anticipating the next round of distractibility common in babies around eight to ten months. Which can lead mothers to think that her baby is trying to wean. But if your baby is younger than 12 months, its very unlikely she’s trying to self-wean.

If a baby is not nursing as much because of distractibility, you should offer your breast even when she doesn’t demand it. Bear with the inevitable longer nursing sessions. You could try to nurse more often during the night when there are less distractions around.

Another option would be holding your baby in different positions that makes it easier for them to look at things around them. If your baby is old enough, you may try having your baby sitting on your lap facing you, or standing up etc … but in my case, baby Clarisse just couldn’t get used to varying feeding positions.

I’ve known about these facts beforehand, but still, it gets on my nerves sometimes. Thank god it is just a passing developmental stage. But that doesn’t make it sound less of a nuisance. Once your baby gets a little older, she’ll find it easier to handle the distractions around her while breastfeeding at the same time.