Breast Feeding.

[bell617]

Ok I have a 3 year old.  I tried breast Feeding her but she never could latch on so I pumped it. I'll he 30 weeks pregnant tuesday. I Def want to keep breast Feeding as I feel it's the best thing ever. My big question is how do you know if the baby is getting enough? And someone said you change breast like they will eat from one breast for so long then the other. Also if I get the freezer bags to freeze my milk because I tend to carry a lot of milk. How long is the frozen milk good for and how do you defrost it.

[bell617]

Thanks guys so much! This is very helpful. I love the thought of breastfeeding and the healthy part od of it. I'm so ready for May. I'll Def look into those classes because I need to know more about breastfeeding.  Thanks again so much!

[lalasmitty85]

First of all, yay you for being a well informed mommy! Secondly breast feeding is great! My best advice is to talk to your lactation consultant. In my experience the best way to bf is to block feed, this means one breast per feeding. The reason being is that you have different types of milk, foremilk, which is like a nutrient rich watery milk and hindmilk, which is the calorie rich fatty milk which will give lo satatity. If you switch in between during feedings it can cause a fussy baby and not provide enough calories to help lo gain weight. Your milk also is going to vary in taste and quantity due to your fluid and food intake. Make sure to chug water! Also eat as healthy as possible as lo will eat what you're eating. Hope that helps and good luck!

[Mommytobe050814]

You can also look into a class for breastfeeding. I am a ftm and just went to a class and found it very informative. There were a lot of things I learned that no one told me about!!!!

[abbb01]

I waited until I went back to work and had a horrible time getting my son to take the bottle ill try to introduce it around 6 weeks this time and I produced ALOT too id be on break playing on my phone and if I wasn't payin attention id soak my uniform before I knew it just one side with a manual pump lol

[bell617]

Thank you thats very helpful. I've seen where a lot of mom's say it was very hard to get the baby switched to a bottle after breastfeeding so much. So I may breastfeed awhile then start pumping. See for some reason I carry a lot of milk or so I think I do lol. When I had my daughter I mean my milk would come in so fast I would pump and within a hour I would have to pump again and it wouldn't take 10 minutes and the breast pump bottles would be full lol.

[abbb01]

U don't want to switch baby from boob to boob too soon cuz ur milk kinda comes in stages when baby first goes on theres more water at the beginning after maybe around 8 mins is when the good fatty stuff comes called the hind milk u may have noticed it when u pumped. If baby is having dirty diapers so many times a day and is gaining weight u guys are doin good. My hospital had sort of a lactation office where ppl ciuld bring their babies in whenever and weigh them just to make sure they were gaining without having to make doc appts. There should be an insert in the freezer bags that say how long the milk will last about a weel in fridge and up to a yr in deep freeze forgive me its been a lil while I dont remember specifics. I defrosted in fridge overnight or in a bowl of warm water never in microwave I labeled all bags with big fat marker with the date as soon as I pumped and if I had just put it in fridge with a F beside that date I hope ur new lil one latches well!

[bell617]

Ok let me say that again lol I don't try breast Feeding my 3 year old. I did when she was born