So now that I'd consider myself a fairly experienced breastfeeding mom I decided to make a list of myths about breastfeeding. Some of them are things I already knew, some are things I learned while breastfeeding Landyn and Lillyanna and a lot of them are things I've learned from our local LLL chapter!
1. Your breasts need time to fill up after feeding your baby: Totally false, your breasts are making milk 24/7, they never stop. Even if your baby ate an hour ago they are still going to get milk AND they are going to help your body make more milk! Supply and Demand baby!
2. You can't make enough milk to feed a big baby: again Supply and demand baby! there are a lot of women who feed mulitiples or tandem nurse (I tandem nursed my 2 kiddos)
3. If you are tired your husband can get up and feed the baby a bottle while you continue to sleep: This is a fast track to loosing your milk supply :( let's go back to supply and demand. If the baby is given a bottle you NEED to get up and pump! (which is a lot harder and takes longer than just feeding the baby) In the first month feeding the baby every 1-2 hours around the clock is normal and it's needed to build your supply (some women don't need to do this and just follow their babies cues which sometimes works out just fine)
4. Your overfeeding your baby: you cannot overfeed an exclusively breastfed infant, (meaning no bottles at all) Breastmilk takes 1.5 hours to digest so your baby very well might be hungry after an hour or so! NOTHING wrong with that! I have an almost 6 month old that still gets up MULTIPLE times per night to eat, yes I get no sleep at all.
5. I have a low milk supply: (i was this mom with Landyn) It's actually very rare for a mom to not be able to make enough milk for her child, it's usually something you are doing that is causing this! (for me it was supplementing with a bottle) 2questions you need to ask first: Is my baby have 4-6 wet and 2-3 BM's a day? and Is my baby gaining weight? If the answer is yes to both of those you DO NOT have a milk supply issue!!
6. I don't feel full: I personally never really feel full unless my daughter sleeps a 4 hour stretch at night (which has happened twice since we've been home) Not feeling full means your body has regulated for your babies needs at that time! Now it will change with growth spurts and if you add pumping but for the most part not feeling full is a good thing! It's uncomfortable and can cause clogged ducts or mastitis!
7. I am going to pump so we can see how much baby is eating: Your baby is much more efficiant than a pump! Some experts say that a baby gets double what you can pump so pumping is NOT an indicator of supply!! Look at baby's diapers and you can tell they are getting enough!
8. I only pump 1.5-3oz per session: this is actually totally normal! A breastfeed baby only needs to eat about 1.25oz per hour when getting a bottle. So if you are going to be gone, you should make 2-2.5oz bottles for every 2 hours you are going to be gone. If you are going back to work print out
this link to give to your caregivers who will be feeding the baby to make sure they are not overfeeding your baby (yes it is possible to OVERFEED a breastfed baby brestmilk out of a bottle)
Okay so that's it for now, Lilly is hungry...again... yup she hate an hour ago but that doesn't mean anything! :)
