General nursing advice

I thought I'd talk a bit about nursing in general first, because sometimes you need to walk before you can run. If my son had nursed as well as my daughter, I might have been able to nurse them together right away, but he was not a natural nurser. If you're a first time mom like I was, all three of you may have some learning to do.

These are tips that are especially good for one-on-one early nursing, when you're trying to help the baby learn to nurse. Once s/he's a good nurser, you don't need as many tricks. So, onward with the general nursing advice..

Take a breastfeeding class:  The more you know about nursing, the more likely you'll be successful. Most hospitals have a class you can take. Take notes and/or make sure you hold onto any handouts and refer to them when you're having trouble. They'll also probably hand out lists of where to go if you need help later; I called a volunteer on one of those lists and she was a big help with my son's latching problem.

Get your partner on board: Your husband should attend the class, too. Although you're the one who will actually nurse, your husband's attitude about nursing can help it succeed or fail. Nursing twins as a first time mom was quite difficult for me; at about 5 weeks I was thinking of giving it up, but when I asked my husband's opinion he said, "It's the best thing for them."  I decided to stick it out.  I did end up giving one formula feed a day, just to get a break; I'll speak more about that in a later post.

All advice is not created equal:  On the other hand, when I asked the pediatrician for nursing advice at a few weeks, she said "you've given them a wonderful gift," as if to say it was okay to give up, because I'd already done so much, nursing them those first couple of weeks. I get that she didn't want me beating myself up if I quit, but the gentle reminder from my husband of why I was doing this difficult thing was much more helpful to me.

Beyond that, if any of your helpers only bottle-fed, they may try to push you toward bottles.  They do mean well; their point of view may be "look how easy a bottle is; you know they got enough and everyone can help you!" If you had just one baby, I'd say absolutely not to listen to those people because you need to nurse in order to keep up your supply. Two babies changes the picture to some extent, but my point in this case is to take with a grain of salt advice that comes from someone who never nursed or didn't last beyond a few weeks.

Use the rooting instinct: If you touch the cheek (or corner of the mouth) of a young baby, s/he will turn toward that cheek with a big open mouth. Think of a baby bird waiting for that worm, but your baby only keeps that mouth open for a short time. So get the baby into nursing position, touch the baby's cheek with your nipple, and when s/he turns toward you, pull the baby toward you and stuff your breast into his/her mouth.  Note: make sure you're not confusing him/her by simultaneously touching the cheek away from your breast.

Watch for hunger cues: If your baby isn't hungry at all, s/he'll hardly pay attention to that touch against his/her cheek. Signs of hunger are a reaction to that touch as well as things like sucking on fingers, putting fingers/fists to his/her mouth... Ooh! Here's a wonderful site for hunger cues, complete with pictures! -- kellymom.  I wish I'd seen that site for my son.

Feed baby before s/he's extremely hungry: My son was extremely difficult to latch on. We finally figured out (with help) that once he was hungry, he was a very "disorganized" thinker and couldn't latch on.  I started feeding him before he was very hungry at all. He got to be a very good eater eventually, but he really needed this extra care on my part to make sure he was fed early enough so he wouldn't get frantic.

Skin to skin: Pull down your hospital gown in the hospital, or take off your shirt at home, and get baby down to his/her diaper. I'm not sure why, but the skin-to-skin contact helps the baby get things right. This helps keep the sleepy baby awake long enough to nurse, too.

Keep the sleepy baby sucking: Newborn babies are drowsy and it helps them continue sucking when you stroke their feet or their bodies.

Drink lots of water; get as much rest as you can: the rest thing is pretty obvious, probably, but the water thing may not be. Always have some water next to you while you nurse, and drink it throughout the day.

Postnatal hospital help: The nurses on the maternity ward may be able to help you with nursing. Beyond that, the hospital may have a time set up for new moms to meet as a group with a lactation consultant or they may have a lactation consultant come to the rooms. Take advantage of any of these things you can; if one isn't helpful, try the next.

Help at home: Bring in a lactation consultant, have a friend who successfully nursed come in, go online and find a nursing mothers' forum, etc. -- if you're having any problems, get help!

I'm going to add a link here to something that looks really helpful on the topic of breastfeeding: Yahoo! Health.  Anything I may not have thought to include here is probably on that site.