Breastfeeding babies tend to move through 3 sucking stages:

• Stimulation: A quick, light suck often done at the beginning of a feeding to stimulate a let down. The tongue cups the breast and baby’s lower jaw moves up and down while the tongue moves quickly. Breastfeeding hormones are released when nerves close to the nipple are triggered, and milk will usually begin to flow within 1-2 minutes. This may be mimicked by the “massage” or “stimulation” mode on your pump.

• Active feeding. Once the milk lets down (milk ejection reflex), baby should swallow every 1-3 sucks. This is active feeding. The lower jaw moves up and down rhythmically and drops just a little lower when the swallow actually happens. You might hear the swallow sound like a “puh” or “kuh”. Baby may take occasional breaks during active feeding to catch their breath. This is the “expression” or slower mode on the pump

• Flutter sucking. Towards the end of the feed, sucking slows down, jaw movements get less pronounced, there are fewer swallows, and baby may fall asleep or unlatch. Some call the fluttery sucking movements at the end of the feed “flutter sucking”. It’s a form of comfort nursing to help baby transition to sleep. Minimal milk is being transferred at this time and it’s ok to unlatch your baby is you are no longer hearing baby swallow.

Babies may alternate between these sucking phases several times during a single feeding. By changing the settings in your pump several times during a feeding session, you can get the pump to mimic how a baby would feel at the breast, triggering your body to let down and make more milk for the pump. If newborn baby is always using a stimualtion or flutter suck and you’re not hearing many swallows, work with an IBCLC to help figure out why and get baby feeding efficiently at the breast.

Pregnancy affects levels of estrogen and progesterone in your body. These hormones get the breasts ready for lactation and are responsible the breast changes you may experience. Estrogen stimulates growth of the breast duct cells and generates the secretion of prolactin, the milk making hormone. Prolactin stimulates breast enlargement and milk production. Progesterone supports the formation and growth of milk-producing cells within the glands of the breasts. In the 2nd trimester, estrogen levels continue to rise. Milk ducts continue to develop, making the breasts feel heavy or full. Some need to purchase a larger bra at this time as you can increase one cup size or several. A few days after birth when milk transitions from colostrum to mature milk, breasts can engorge and grow even more. For several weeks, breasts will feel full between feedings and soft after feeding. Eventually they will feel soft all the time and start to shrink back to pre-pregnancy size. Some breasts will stay large and some will shrink back significantly. Sometimes one can reduce in size and the other stay large.

I usually recommend not purchasing a bunch of bras while pregnant. You don’t know what size you’ll end up being and may waste money on expensive bras you won’t wear. Bralettes, nursing tanks with built in shelf bras, or soft wireless bras that have a lot of stretch can be helpful while your body is constantly changing. Once you’re several months into nursing, breasts may stabilize in size until you completely wean. Now it’s time to be re-measured for the support your girls deserve.

The composition and nutrients in your milk can be influenced by how you store and reheat your milk. Any containers that contact your milk should be clean and sterile. Avoid cross contamination with other foods when storing your milk in the fridge. It is acceptable to store breast milk for up to 4 days in the fridge (preferably the back, not the door, to prevent warming from the door opening). If you are going to freeze your milk try to freeze it within 24 hours of pumping it as the beneficial enzymes begin to change at approximately 25 hours. This doesn’t have to be a determining factor in the how quickly you freeze your refrigerated milk, but it’s worth it to store as soon as possible. If not used within 4 days, fresh breast milk should be transferred to the freezer in a clean, freezer-safe container and dated with the original pump time. It is acceptable to store breast milk in a freezer with an attached refrigerator for up to 6 months and in a deep freezer for up to 9-12 months, but the sooner it’s used the better. Nutrients in frozen breast milk are mostly preserved for 1 month, but after 3 months in the freezer, there is a noteworthy decline in concentrations of fats, calories and other macronutrients. Freezing kills some of the live antibodies found in your milk, so rather than freezing all of your pumped milk, feed as much fresh or refrigerated milk as possible.

• Breast milk stored in the refrigerator maintains most if it’s immune properties with break down starting after 25 hours.

• Heating breast milk at high temperatures (especially in the microwave—which is not recommended), can destroy the antibodies and other immune factors in your breast milk.

• Frozen breast milk loses some of its healthy immune factors, but not all.

The goal is not to put gas in a tank to see how far it can go between top ups. It’s to teach a tiny human to listen to their body and it’s needs from an early age to help them grow and develop.

This is FEEDING. How you feed is different than how I feed. How your family feeds is unique and not how my family feeds. From what we eat, to how often we eat, to when we eat it’s such an individual process!! Some adults are grazers. They like to snack on small meals all day. They sip water throughout the day and always have a water bottle handy. Some babies are like this, too. Some adults are bingers. They eat really big meals less often. They only drink water in big glasses around meal times. Some babies are like this, too. And there’s everything in between. The goal is not to reach some magic number of ounces in a limited number of feedings because an internet blog said baby needed x number or ounces in 4 feedings a day. That can cause undo stress. The goal is to learn your unique baby’s feeding habits and help them foster those habits within your family context as they grow and develop into a bigger and bigger human.

All mammals have nipples as they feed their live young milk from their bodies. Marsupials and eutherian mammals typically have an even number of nipples arranged in pairs on both sides of their bodies, from as few as two to as many as 19 pairs. Some 5,600-6,000 species of mammals feed their young milk, and thus have mammary glands, but not all mammals have breasts (or nipples!!). In humans, areola surrounds the nipple in a round shape and comes in varying sizes, on average 3 to 6 centimeters. It has sebaceous (oil) glands that make projections on its surface (those little bumps that form in pregnancy). Those little bumps secrete an oil that smells like amniotic fluid to help baby use smell to find the nipple to latch to. In the center of the areola is the nipple, again in a wide variety of sizes shapes and lengths, and can be 10 to 27 millimeters (mm) wide by 1 to 10 mm in height. Its skin is similar to the areola, but has no oil glands. It has 4 to 20 pores where milk can come out. The skin of the nipple rests on a thin layer of smooth muscle, called areolar muscle fibers which are distributed in two directions: radial and circular. The muscle of Sappey responsible for circular fibers and the muscle of Meyerholz, formed by the radial fibers. Contraction of these muscles is responsible for the erecting of the nipples during stimulation and breastfeeding as well as the ejection of milk from the breast.

Our bodies are not symmetrical. Most people make more milk on the right and have a slightly larger left breast. Did you know even your nipples can be different sizes, shapes, and lengths? They may be positioned in slightly different places on your breast. This can sometimes make latching on one side more difficult than the other. You may also need to pump with different size or brand pump flanges to maximize pump comfort and output. Each breast can have a different flow, volume and TASTE of milk even in the same feeding or pump session. We also have hand preferences and can find it easier to latch on one side versus the other. Some times trying different positions or angles of bringing baby to breast can be helpful when practicing.

Tandem breastfeeding is when two or more children breast/chestfeed or receive expressed milk at the same time.

It is possible to continue to breastfeed throughout pregnancy; however, there are some important things to know. Some may experience nipple sensitivity or a feeding aversion to the point that they want to stop feeding the older. About 1/2 report their milk supply drops, sometimes significantly. This is from hormonal changes and there is little that can be done to prevent this. If the first baby is less than one year old, supplementation may be required until after the birth of the baby. Milk can transition back to colostrum as early as the end of the first trimester. Colostrum is salty and some toddlers not drink it. Colostrum also acts as a laxative to help newborns poop meconium. It may have the same laxative effect on your toddler, so be warned!

Once the new baby comes, some will feed both children together at the same time, rotating which side they start on each time. Others may take turns to feed one child at a time. If the babies are of different ages, they’ll usually feed the newborn first to optimize milk supply. Many tandem feeders say that breastfeeding their toddler helps with the transition of having a newborn.

Tummy Time is one of baby’s first exercises! It is a crucial exercise for baby’s motor, visual, and sensory development. Baby can begin Tummy Time as a newborn. This can start on your body while you lay down. This can be done in bed, on a couch or in the bathtub! Wearing your baby in an infant carrier or ring sling also counts as tummy time! We’re encouraging baby to use their core strength and rotate their head from side to side. Once baby gets a little bigger and stronger, tummy time can be done on a firm, flat surface. Start with small increments of a few minutes at a time, several times a day. Eventually, try to do longer Tummy Time sessions, eventually building up to a full hour.

• Newborn-2 months old – spend a minimum of 30 minutes per day during awake periods, this can be broken up into multiple sessions instead of doing it all at once
• 2-4 months old – spend a minimum of 45-90 minutes per day during awake periods
• 4-6 months old – spend a minimum of 1-2 hours per day during awake periods
• 6-8 months old – the majority of waking hours will be spent in tummy time or sitting/learning to sit. Babies should learn to sit before they learn to stand.

It’s important to note that babies are not 100% immune to any disease for which they get antibodies via breast milk. Antibodies in our milk to flus, colds and viruses that we’ve been exposed to help reduce the severity and length of time our babies may get sick. When we get sick or get vaccinated against certain diseases, antibodies pass through out milk to provide PASSIVE immunity to our babies. This does NOT mean that our babies won’t or can’t get sick. We still need to take precautions to minimize risk of and exposure to viruses and germs.

If you’ve had COVID or the vaccine, it doesn’t mean baby is automatically immune to getting it. Antibodies passed on via breast milk aren’t permanently circulating in baby’s system to forever protect them against a disease. The antibodies, which are found after a feed in the baby’s mouth, nasal cavity, and gut, are eventually washed away by baby’s saliva, mucus, or gastric juices. Within few hours after nursing, antibodies will have disappeared from the baby’s mouth and nasal cavity, while a small amount may stay in the gut. Antibodies are replenished in your breast milk every time baby feeds. The more often a baby breastfeeds, the more chances they have to get those antibodies and passive immunity. Meaning, a 2-year-old who only breastfeeds 1-2 times a day isn’t going to be as consistently protected as a 2-month-old feeding 10+ times a day. So if you’re thinking about adding in breast milk to your dinner casserole to give immunity to your preschooler, it doesn’t work like that. Partial protection is still better than no protection, so if it makes you feel better, so for it.