Our vaginally born babies go to breast as soon as they look interested
(usually within the first 20 minutes). C/S babies go to breast as soon as
mom is stable...we are working at getting that sooner, we just started doing
c/s on the floor.

After many years of suggesting moms use both breasts at each feeding, we are
more and more teaching moms to finish the first breast first.  I like this
because when an infant gets one good long feed at one breast, it really
seems to increase the mom's confidence level, and she's more ready to work
hard on that "other breast" in situations where the mom or baby has a
preference. You know what I mean!
It just seems to make no sense for a new mom who is just learning, to switch
breasts after some arbitrary amount of time on the first breast. This way
you can also teach mom and dad to look for audible swallowing and sucking
rhythms. By the day of discharge they are pointing out the changes in the
baby's suck/swallow rhythm to me! And very often babies are doing both
breasts as the supply is increasing.

Babies are put to breast ad lib or every three hours, whichever comes first.
(We do mom/baby nursing; infants may be sent to the nursery at night but
will go back to mom when they awaken and root.) I specifically talk about
"using yourself as a pacifier" because some of our nurses are so vocal about
"NOT using yourself as a pacifier." Since our discussions here I talk about
consciously over-calibrating your supply in the early days. (I used to talk
about "nursing your brains out" but somehow people didn't respond well to
that word picture. Hmmmmm) We try not to get too crazed about babies who are
sleepy the first day -- as long as they've gotten that first good nursing.
And we're working at getting moms pumping when every feed has been lousy.

Dawn Kersula RN, FACCE, IBCLC
BMH Birthing Center
Brattleboro Vermont

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html