The First 12 Hours: How to Set Yourself Up for Breastfeeding Success

Possible.

I'm Amber again, I-B-C-L-C and empowering moms in their breastfeeding journey is what I do. Breastfeeding comes with a lot of opinions. Your doctor, your mother-in-law, that random lady at the park, and it can leave you feeling like you're constantly second guessing yourself. That's why I created the Latch Lounge Podcast to cut through the noise and give you real judgment free.

My biggest piece of advice for new mothers that I work with prenatally is get comfortable telling people, no thank you. If the lactation consultant or bedside nurse in your labor and delivery room comes up to you after baby's in place on your chest and asks, Hey, do you want me to help you get a good latch?

You can say no thank you. If they start to grab at your baby without saying anything, as, uh, can happen, sometimes you can say, please stop. No thank you. I don't need any help with Latch. I'm just gonna wait until baby's ready. So with that said, when do we need to worry? At what point does baby need to have latched?

So, you definitely want to have your baby on your skin, skin to skin with you for that first hour, but the first hour is not the only hour that matters. I tell all the moms I work with uninterrupted skin to skin with your baby until there is a baby lead first latch that's effective and comfortable.

Where baby gets to nurse for as long as they want to and comes off naturally. That's how long we want to have that skin to skin time. We don't wanna say, oh, let's just have a golden hour. And then after that we have mother-in-laws and everybody and their mama coming in. To hold the baby and look at the baby and talk to you and ask you questions and take pictures.

But generally speaking, up to four hours, completely fine. I've had certain clients across time, mostly those who've given birth outside of the hospital setting. I. Have waited six, eight hours before being, concerned about intervening or trying to encourage baby to latch. Everyone should do their own research, work with care providers that they trust and make decisions around, interventions based on their own goals and opinions and understanding of risks and benefits.

So whenever you and baby are reunited, if there was a separation immediately after baby was born. Implementing skin to skin is going to benefit you both immensely. I always tell moms we do not wanna limit skin to skin to the first few hours. We don't wanna limit it to the hospital. Skin to skin is gonna benefit you and your baby so, so much.

When we think about lactation, I. There are two main hormones. There's a lot of hormones really, but there's two main hormones that are going to drive your experience of producing and feeding your baby milk. The first is gonna be prolactin. That's gonna be what tells our body to make milk. The other is going to be oxytocin, which is what's going to tell our body to eject milk.

The best thing you can do is keep your baby skin to skin in the breastaurant. As a good friend of mine called it. So that whenever they are ready to eat, you are gonna be able to pick up on those hunger signals straight away. The last thing that we want is a baby that's too comfortable. I know that might sound a little bit funny, but really when babies are.

Wrapped up really tightly in a swaddle, they're in a SNOO or something like that, where they're being overly comforted. It's really, really easy to miss those initial hunger cues and when we miss them and we start to see that baby's hungry, when we're seeing those later hunger cues, what we're dealing with is a frustrated baby whose blood sugar is not having any of the nonsense and they're ready to eat like five minutes ago.

That's the last thing we want.

So let's talk about. When you need to be worried about adding formula or supplementing during those first few hours after baby arrives. So as I mentioned, we in most cases don't need to be worried about baby latching for the first couple of hours, but we have a lot of well-meaning doctors and nurses who can push the need to supplement with formula.

Who can encourage moms, to just go ahead and give a bottle. And who can tell moms that they need to pump right after baby's born? In a situation where mom and baby are kept together, there's really no reason to start pumping. If your plan is to feed exclusively at the breast. Even if your plan is to feed exclusively at the breast for a short period of time, or you're not really sure how long you wanna do it, do not start pumping unless pumping is your goal.

In most cases we have singleton babies, so our bodies were designed to make enough milk for one baby and when we start pumping and latching, baby, our bodies are getting mixed signals, and we're not gonna really be good at either. It's one of those things, you're spreading yourself too thin.

If you're an exclusive pumper, that's your goal. That's your plan. By all means, start pumping as soon as you'd like. But if your goal is to feed exclusively at the boob, then we wanna be respectful of that goal and not introduce a bump too early. Another thing that a lot of moms don't keep in mind when it comes to pumping in the hospital, it's almost guaranteed that the flanges that they have, assuming that you don't bring your own pump, if you're using the pump in the hospital, it's almost certain that the flanges they have are not going to be the ones that fit you.

Another thing I really want new moms to understand is there is no. Schedule for how long you are brand new to this Earth, baby is going to eat. Please do not let anyone pressure you or cajole you into thinking that your brand new newborn needs to nurse for seven minutes on the left and then seven minutes on the right and then in two hours we're gonna do that same thing again.

You are more than welcome to do whatever the hell you want, first of all, but in this context, to provide a little bit more helpful information, you are more than welcome to let your baby latch and let them stay latched as long as it's comfortable for the two of you. Babies are not robots and they don't typically care much about our schedules, wake windows, or any of that stuff.

Is clicking, squeaking, doing any stuff that's feeling a little bit off, be sure to reach out to lactation care so that you can get the support you need. In my private practice, I work with moms all across the US and we get dialed in on what is going on so that mom can have a comfortable and empowering experience with breastfeeding.

Lastly, I just wanna talk about one thing that we see. Covered and highlighted on social media all the time, and that is oral ties. So tongue ties, lip ties, cheek ties, all of that fun stuff. So a lot of moms come to me and their baby is struggling, they're in pain, their nipples are cracked, baby's not gaining weight.

Because if it was the former, they did not check. They just glanced, and they were looking for probably the world's most prominent tongue tie, and that would've been the only thing that they noticed, and in some cases, they missed those as well. If things are hurting, if they're not feeling right. If you are struggling, don't let anyone tell you that everything is okay.

If you feel that it is not. While breast pain, nursing pain, low milk supply, all of these things can be normal. They are not the way our bodies were designed to function. Our babies were designed to be good, efficient eaters. Breastfeeding was designed to be a comfortable and joyful experience. And if you are having an experience that is anything less than that.

I've had several moms over the past week or two come to me and I'm the second, third, fifth I-B-C-L-C that they've seen. And they were getting to the point where they're like, I think all IB CLCs are useless, which I hate to hear 'cause I know we're not. But it's just because they had landed in front of the.

Wrong IBCLCs. But the great thing is, is that they kept looking. So if you talk to an I-B-C-L-C, a lactation consultant, a breastfeeding specialist, et cetera, and you don't feel that they're aligned with supporting you in your unique goals, if you don't feel that the vibe is there, talk to someone else.

For certain plans like Aetna, we do have to be respectful of the fact that we have limited visits. So doing as much research as you can beforehand is super duper important. Which is what I love about being able to have a podcast 'cause I'm able to kind of give all of you wonderful mamas a view of kind of how I think and how I approach my care.

So if your first few hours with your baby did not go the way that you wanted, just understand that there is so much you can do to get things back on track.

All of these things that I've talked about say are really important, especially being able to find really good care that's aligned with you. I hope that you've all found this really, really useful and just remember that those first few hours really matter, but our bodies and our babies are very resilient, so if things didn't get off to the right start, there's always so much you can do to restore your breastfeeding journey to a empowering.

Joyful experience.

Check your coverage and book your session today@thelatchlink.com. And if you're looking for instant help with latch issues, grab my course Latch Legend for step-by-step fixes you can use right now. If you love this episode, subscribe and leave a review. It's the best way to help other moms find the support they deserve.

Until next time, trust yourself, trust your baby, and know you are doing an amazing job.