Early Questions

Unfortunately, our first and only full day at the hospital was Sunday. Sunday would have been fine except for the fact it was the only day at the hospital the lactation specialists don't work. The nurses were very helpful but I don't think they were able to offer the expertise of a trained, certified, lactation specialist. On the day of our discharge, the lactation specialist finally came to visit with us. Aya had just nursed and was sleeping peacefully. She asked us how things were going and I told her they seemed to be going well (I didn't have the experience to know they could have been going a lot better). I told her that I was beginning to feel sore and she encouraged me to make sure Aya's mouth was wide open before latching on. Looking back, I really wished I had described how Aya was nursing to get feedback. I also wish I would have let her watch me feed Aya so that she could have given some suggestions. I believe the first days of nursing are so very critical for a good and solid start to breastfeeding, and I now understand that many problems can be avoided if they are noticed initially before they become bigger, and more challenging. And so my suggestion to new moms is to make sure they have as much help breastfeeding in the beginning as possible. Ask the nurses, the lactation specialists, and maybe even a la leche league leader, to sit with you while you nurse and offer feedback and suggestions. Continue to get support when you go home too because your milk most likely won't even come home until a day or two after you've left the hospital. Make plans ahead of time to have a post partum doula, or a local la leche league leader on hand if you need them to visit you in your home. Here are some questions I wish I had asked but didn't know I needed the answers until much later.
How should nursing feel?
What should nursing sound like?
Can you help me position Aya?
How can I be more comfortable while nursing?
How often should I nurse?
How can I know when the baby is done?
It was difficult to know what questions to ask in the beginning because I didn't know what I needed to know. I now often tell my pregnant friends to focus less on how to go through labor and more on how to feed their baby. After all, feeding and sleeping is what newborns do and in my experience, when feeding isn't going well, nothing else goes well either.