The tables have really turned on the breast vs. bottle issue, and nowadays doctors, nurses, your next-door-neighbor, and the stranger you met on the bus last week will all urge you to breastfeed your baby whether you want to or not. But hear me now: IT IS YOUR DECISION. If you are the one having the baby, then it is up to you how you want to feed. If you decide to nurse your baby, here are some helpful tips to get you going.

In the Hospital

Let the nurses help you. They can show you how to help your baby latch on, how to hold the baby, and all the tricks of early breastfeeding. You tend to lose your modesty with them since they've just helped you deliver your baby, so don't worry about that, but if you want privacy from other patients and you are in a semi-private room, pull those curtains! It's not rude to want to be alone with your family and your doctors and nurses.

While you're in the hospital, it's okay to ask the nurses to take your baby to the nursery for a little while to let you get some rest. Many women are opting for "rooming in," which just means your baby is with you 24/7 after she's born. Even if you have opted for that, if you are exhausted and you need to sleep, take advantage of their help. They can bring the baby back to you when it's time to nurse.

Get In Bed

Once your baby is born, even if you have other children to take care of, get in bed with your newborn and let someone else take care of the household. More than vacuuming or cooking or even playing with your older child, you and your baby need the closeness, the rest, the bonding time and the nursing time that you can get from hanging out in bed together. Don’t even get up for meals. And here’s the key: Do this for as long as you want to! As long as it takes! Stay in bed for days if you like. You are recovering from having a baby, don’t forget, and you have to take care of yourself. If you have to get up for a few minutes, don’t make the bed. There’s no point since you’ll be getting right back into it.

While you’re in your bed, use the time to practice nursing. Try lying on your side with the baby next to you to nurse. One of the hardest things to learn is to hold your baby in the correct position while sitting up to nurse, so just eliminate that for now and lie down. It may feel awkward at first, and your baby may even cry about it, but it really does work.

Try Different Positions

When you're nursing, if lying down doesn’t work for you, try sitting up in a comfortable chair with a back and armrests. Or sit up in bed with a nursing pillow (like a Boppy). Make sure you are bringing the baby up to your breast rather than leaning or hunching over to the baby. If you do the hunched over position, you’ll end up with a very sore back and a baby with a bad habit. Another way to hold the baby to nurse is in the football hold, with his body across your side and his feet around at your back.

Engorgement

The first day or so after having your baby, you’ll feel like there’s no milk. That’s normal, that’s just when the colostrum is coming down. It’s just a tiny bit, but it’s all your baby needs right now. On about the third day (the day you come home from the hospital, of course), suddenly you will start to feel your breasts filling with milk. If the baby isn’t nursing well at that point, you may get engorged.

Let me warn you, engorgement sort of hurts. It feels like your breasts have become rock hard and might burst (they won't). You just will feel like you would do anything, anything to get the milk out of you. But wait! There are ways! Of course, the best way is for the baby to nurse, but that’s in an ideal world where the baby is already latching on correctly and helping you out.

If that’s not the case for you (it wasn’t for me), then get a pump. Walmart sells them, baby stores sell them, and they’re not as expensive as they used to be. Double pumps are nice, but not necessary. You may save yourself a few minutes, but they’re awkward to use and you have no free hands. A single pump is fine. You can also rent one from the hospital. Just don’t waste your time and money on a hand pump - splurge and get an electric one. You’ve got enough problems right now without dealing with inadequate equipment! Just pump for about 10 minutes. Pump as often as you want to while you are engorged. It will get the milk out and give you some relief. Once you've got the relief, however, don't keep pumping unless you are trying to build up your milk supply. The more milk you express, the more milk you will make. You can give your expressed milk to your baby, either in a bottle now, or freeze it for later.

If you do decide to use a pump, don’t make the mistake of thinking you need to freeze a whole bunch of milk for your baby. You just don’t need it, plus the stuff that’s in your milk is right for your baby at the moment, and what your baby needs in a few weeks will be slightly different. Mother Nature seems to know how to make it all work out so you don’t have to worry about it.

If you are still engorged, take some Motrin or Tylenol to relieve some of the pain. And if you’re looking for a homeopathic remedy for engorgement, try cabbage. It sounds crazy, but I actually tried this on a recommendation from a lactation consultant, and it really did help.

You're wondering, "Cabbage?" Yep, I'm telling you to try cabbage. Get someone to go to the store for you and buy you a head of cabbage. Make a big bowl of icy water and put some of the leaves in there to get them nice and cold (and wet). Crush them a little to make them less hard so that you can mold them onto, yes, you guessed it, your breasts. You’ll need a towel because there will be cabbage water running down you. It’s weird, but it really works! Believe me, if you’re desperate enough, you’ll try it and see.

Forgo the Guilt

There are some people that believe that nursing is the ONLY way to feed your baby healthfully. That’s just not true, and if you decide to supplement your baby’s diet with formula while you’re getting this nursing thing down, that’s really okay. Don’t let them make you believe that if you give your baby a bottle a time or two a day she’ll never nurse again. It’s just not true. Babies are much more resiliant than that.

If nursing is slow in coming, then by all means use that free formula that they gave you in the hospital. A full baby is much happier than a hungry one, and it’ll give you more time to figure out what you’re doing.

If you have a baby with special needs or prematurity, you may have more difficulty and may not be successful. That’s okay too - don’t beat yourself up about it. If you are determined, you can still pump milk for your child to have through a feeding tube or bottle. And if you decide that dealing with a sick or special needs child is more than enough, thank you, to deal with, then do not let a single person make you feel guilty for giving your baby formula.

Get Some Support

If you really can’t get the baby to latch on, it’s time to get a lactation consultant to help you out. Call the hospital where you had the baby and ask for a phone number. And don’t feel like a failure because you need help. I practically lived in my lactation consultant’s office while my son was in the NICU (he was a preemie). She had women coming and going at all hours of the day and night, and she really had seen it all. If you had a normal delivery with a healthy baby, just know that whatever your problem is, yours is not some special, unsolvable case.

You can also look online and find a La Leche League member to call for help. These are women who’ve been there, and often really can give you some good advice for your particular situation.

Problems, Solutions

• If you have pain while you’re nursing, try putting some lanolin on. It relieves cracking and dryness.
• If you have shooting pain and red lines on your breast along with flu-like symptoms, call your doctor immediately. You probably have mastitis and need an antibiotic. This is very common.
• If you find you are leaking milk (you will), there’s not much you can do to stop it, but you can buy breast pads at grocery and drug stores to keep you from drenching your shirt.
• If you are constantly tired and feel you need to sleep all the time, then SLEEP for goodness sakes! You’re using a lot of energy with nursing, plus you haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep since the huge ordeal of having a baby. Give yourself a break.
• Another solution for low energy - wait for it - EAT! You need more calories when you are nursing.
• Dry skin and mouth is a symptom of nursing. Drink as much water as you can and eat a low sodium diet if it’s a real problem.
• Crying and feeling hopeless are symptoms many women experience in the first week after having a baby. It’s called the Baby Blues and it’s normal. If these feelings last more than a week, contact your doctor to talk about post-pardom depression.

Breast-feeding is hard, let’s just be clear on that. The first days after your baby is born, you are tired, sore, euphoric, and tired again, and yet you have this needy creature to care for. The first week is the hardest, but keep this in mind: the longer you stick with it the easier it gets.

Congratulations and best wishes!