Many expectant parents attend a breastfeeding prenatal class/group or meet one on one with a lactation consultant.

Let the your support person and hospital staff know you are planning on breastfeeding, avoid bottles and pacifiers. Give yourself and your baby a chance to learn how to breastfeed.

Plan to exclusively breastfeed. Breastfeeding only for the first 4-6 weeks allows your body to learn how much milk to make for baby.

Enjoy skin to skin snuggles following the birth, you should keep your baby with you until they breastfeed for the first time. Do skin to skin as much as possible. When placed skin-to-skin, your baby instinctively feels safe and protected. Skin-to-skin contact helps ease the transition to life outside the womb and decreases the stress of birth for both you and your baby. When your baby is skin to skin they can use their instincts to find the breast and latch.

Breastfeed within the first hour.

Keep your baby near you, unless medically indicated. You will see when your baby is hungry.

Watch for feeding cues.

Breastfeed as often as 12 times per 24 hours or every 1-2 hours. Some babies need help waking up.

If you are separated from your baby you should remove milk with hand expression or a breast pump. This tells your breasts to make milk.

Ask for help! A lactation consultant can help you with the latch and breastfeeding positions.

The first milk you have is colostrum. It is yellow in color and contains millions of protective cells. This first milk coats your baby’s insides, preventing illness, viruses and infection and helps them pass their first bowel movement. Your colostrum will gradually change to mature milk by day 1-5.

You have a very small amount of colostrum because your baby’s stomach is small, your supply increases as your baby grows.

You will know your baby is getting enough by the amount of wet and dirty diapers.

Newborn babies loose weight in the beginning.