Breastfeeding is the normal method of feeding infants. Your body was made to breastfeed your baby. It can take some time for you to feel confident! It’s important to practise having a deep latch so that you are comfortable and your baby is able to get lots of milk from your breasts.
Try to feed your baby when you see early feeding cues. Your baby will be more content and feed easier if she is not crying. When your baby is hungry she will:
- Start to wake up
- Make rapid eye movement under the eyelids
- Lick/suck/move her mouth
- Turn her head while opening her mouth (rooting)
- Make smacking and grunting sounds
- Bring hands to mouth and fists become tight
- Cry (the last sign of hunger)
If you need help breastfeeding or need to rent a breast pump, check the below breastfeeding supports available resources in your community.
- Guelph Breastfeeding Supports
- Dufferin County and East Wellington Breastfeeding Supports
- Wellington County Breastfeeding Supports
Getting started
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Breastfeeding in the First Hours
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Skin-to-Skin with Baby
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The Latch
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Having a deep latch means you and your baby will feel more comfortable and your baby will get more milk and grow well. The International Breastfeeding Centre (IBC) has videos that show deep latch and how to tell your baby is swallowing.
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Breastfeeding Positions
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Laid-back breastfeeding means getting comfortable with your baby and encouraging your own and your baby’s natural breastfeeding instincts. Visit Biological Nurturing for further information.
Common Breastfeeding How-Tos
- Feeding a sleeping baby
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Newborns are sleepy and often need stimulation throughout the feed to keep them active and swallowing at the breast. This is normal and temporary. To make sure your baby is eating enough, it’s important for your baby to be as awake as possible while feeding. Keeping your baby stimulated throughout the feed will encourage swallowing. Here are some tips to encourage your baby to continue to swallow during a feed.
Dress your baby in a diaper only
Your baby will be more alert if wearing only a diaper during feeds. Clothing will make your baby warm and sleepy. Your baby will be just the right temperature next to your skin and you will be able to touch your baby’s skin during the feed.
Stimulate your baby throughout the feed
To keep your baby awake, touch your baby with your hands or a cool cloth, or gently blow on your baby to stimulate him. Once your baby starts to suck, you can use breast compressions to encourage him to swallow.
Use breast compressions
Use breast compressions to encourage your sleepy baby to swallow. Wait for your baby to suck, or stimulate your baby to suck, and then compress (squeeze) your breast and hold during the sucking. You should notice your baby swallows while you compress. When your baby stops drinking, release the compression. Repeat this, moving your hand to compress all around your breast until your baby is no longer swallowing during the compression. Sit your baby up to wake him and start over on the other breast. Watch this video of a 2 day old baby to see compressions.
- Relieving engorgement
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Engorgement is when your breasts become so full of milk that the blood vessels leak fluid into the surrounding tissue space, causing the breast to swell. This swelling, or engorgement, is painful and can make it difficult for your baby to latch on. It is temporary. Frequent feeding and using cold packs will help. If your engorgement is more severe, watch How to relieve engorgement with reverse pressure softening (Video) to learn a very simple and effective technique for quick relief.
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Collecting and storing your breastmilk (pumping)
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You may need to express breastmilk if you are separated from your baby because of illness or prematurity or want to increase your breastmilk supply. If you are separated from your baby, start expressing as soon as possible and remove milk from your breasts at least 8 times in 24 hours. The amount of milk you collect depends on many things such as time of day, how long since the last feeding and your level of stress.
Are you pumping and would like to learn tips to help your milk flow? Watch this “How to use your hands when you pump” video.
For guidelines on expressing milk, how long it keeps in the fridge and freezer and how to clean the equipment, download our fact sheet How to Collect and Store Your Breastmilk (PDF, 2 pages, 153 KB).
- Hand expression
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Hand expression is a useful skill to learn and you can start right after your baby is born. During the first few days of your baby’s life, you will be expressing colostrum. Make sure you catch this “liquid gold” on a spoon or in a cup and feed it to your baby. Your expressed milk is especially important for your baby if he was born early, has low blood sugar, is separated from you, is having trouble latching, or if he has lost more than a normal amount of weight.
Watch Early hand expression (Video) and Hand expressing milk (Video) to learn how to hand express.
- Cup feeding
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If you are away from your baby or have trouble latching, your baby can be fed from a cup. Cup feeding is less likely than bottle-feeding to confuse your baby while he or she learns to breastfeed. Note that your baby laps the milk up with his tongue. Be careful not to pour the milk into your baby’s mouth. Watch this video to see how a baby cup feeds.