8 milk shortage myths: typical worries of young mothers

About 9 out of 10 mothers complaining about a lack of milk, actually think so unreasonably, focus solely on their own feelings and behavior of the child. But these indicators are biased and are most often explained by other reasons.

There are expressions of mothers how the twins are similar to each other and you even heard them from your friends or you spoke them yourself. With slight variations ...

“My chest is not filling up as before, it is no longer bursting with milk, it has become soft and I feel that it is empty ...”

Usually, such words can be heard from mom at 2-3 months of lactation. Most often, this is due to the onset of the normal stage of lactation - mature lactation. When milk is no longer produced for the future, and the mammary gland adapts to the needs of the baby and the milk comes exactly as much as it needs for one feeding. Thus, nature has provided an opportunity for the mother's body not to work for wear.

An important clarification, the more children the mother fed, the faster this moment can come. Once, the mother of the 4th child turned to me! She fed all the children herself! And all the offspring gained good weight, including the newborn. She said that with every baby, she has less and less milk and doubted her ability to feed a small one. It turned out that such a condition (the breasts were not filled, they were not bursting, they were soft) she had come earlier, with her last child, mature lactation was established after a month of feeding. It is wonderful that my mother turned out to be very attentive and balanced, we discussed with her what exactly is happening, that the softness of the breast and the feeling of not being full do not affect the ability to feed the baby. Now she successfully continues to breastfeed.

Therefore, dear mothers, if you notice a change in the condition of the breast and the arrival of milk, do not worry and do not worry.Do not immediately run to the pharmacy for a mixture and a bottle, do not drink a bunch of lactogonics, do not start drinking tea with milk in liters (especially since this lactation recipe does not help). Better relax, look at your happy little one, assess whether your urination, stool frequency and weight gain. If in this regard, everything is fine, then you have no reason to worry.

We have considered the option if the organization of breastfeeding was correct. But quite often there are situations when significant errors were made in the organization of feeding:

• The breastfeed was fed with a mixture, unless absolutely necessary;
• The kid received a dummy and began to devote a lot of time to it;
• Skipped overnight applications (the importance of night feedings);
• Mom could withstand the intervals between feedings or limit the time of sucking;
• The crumbs in large volumes were added with water.

In this case, it is at this age of the baby, mistakes begin to make themselves felt. And milk production can really decrease. And in this case, if errors are not eliminated, lactation will not regain full strength even despite the constant use of lactogonics.

“Everything was fine, but in the morning I woke up and there was nothing to feed! The milk is gone! ”

I must say right away, mothers, if you were breastfeeding normally before that, then milk cannot go anywhere during the night, even in a week, it cannot go anywhere! Lactation is a hormonal process and stopping it is not so simple. Even if you are faced with this phenomenon, keep calm, do not grab the bottle, try to relax and more often apply the child throughout the day. The baby will surely suck up milk production and everything will work out.

We go further ...

“I have lactostasis and the baby does not want to take breasts, probably the milk is burnt out or tastes bad” or “I am afraid to feed the baby because of stagnation”

First aid for any lactostasis is the sucking of the child and the more often he will do it, the faster you, together with the baby, will cope with it. If you have the first signs of lactostasis, begin to apply crumbs to this breast more often. After all, if you are less likely to breastfeed, then the nipple and areola will swell more and it will be more difficult for the baby to grab the chest well and free it from stagnant milk. That is why, most often the baby refuses to take it.

Sometimes it happens that due to stagnation, milk gets a salty taste and mother, having tried it, is afraid to feed her baby with such milk. In fact, such milk is not at all dangerous for the baby, just when it stagnates, the level of salts in the milk increases, and it acquires such an aftertaste. You can and should feed! After elimination of lactostasis, taste is fully restored.

We also read: Breast lactostasis and its treatment

“I tried to express, but it didn’t work out” or “I don’t have milk, with two breasts it’s only 40 grams!”

The amount of expressed milk is not an indicator of a lack of milk, and you do not need to focus on it. And there are explanations for this.

Firstly, even the coolest breast pump can not be compared with the natural sucking of the baby, the power of the vacuum when sucking the baby and the natural wave-like movements of the tongue make it easy to simply suck the milk from the breast. The mammary gland readily responds to the sucking of the native baby, its proximity and smell, and gives the milk itself, the milk-separating reflex is turned on and the milk is thrown into the mouth of the baby. And when pumping, it doesn’t matter whether you do it with your hands or with the help of a breast pump, this reflex may not work and a large amount cannot be pumped.

Secondly, in any business you need a skill and this skill also needs to be learned. Therefore, if for some reason you didn’t succeed in decanting any significant amount of milk, this is not a reason to be upset, draw far-reaching conclusions and plan a trip for the mixture.

We also read: learning to express breasts with hands and choose a breast pump and learn correctly breast express breast pump

“My baby hangs on his chest or does not sleep very long and again asks for a chest. I probably don't have enough milk. ”

The fact is that for a human baby, frequent feeding is biologically justified. Our species of mammals, whatever one may say, this is true, refers to those species that practically do not part with the baby, carry it with them, feed it according to their every desire to attach to the mammary gland.

Woman’s breast milk contains easily digestible fats, which are digested quite quickly. The record time for which breast milk is able to digest is only 30 minutes. Therefore, a frequent demand of the breast is the normal behavior of the baby in the first months of life. And this is not an indicator of lack of milk.

It should not be discounted also that for a newborn baby, breasts are, without exaggeration, that's all! This is a way to talk with mom, feel comfortable, safe, close, a way to empty the intestines and get rid of discomfort, some babies write when they suckle. With the help of the breast, the baby adapts to the new environment after birth, this is the thread connecting the baby and mother, like the umbilical cord in the tummy, this is a natural continuation of pregnancy and the birth of a baby. Therefore, frequent feeding is important for both the mother and the baby, especially in the first months of feeding.

“The baby is worried under his chest, crying, and it seems to me that he is crying because I have little milk”

In fact, the reasons for this behavior are a cart and a small cart, and not in the first place is a feeling of hunger and lack of milk.

We note only a few of them, in fact there can be a great many of them and it is better to deal with the reasons individually.

• If a baby is sometimes fed from a bottle, then at a certain stage he purposefully begins to demand it. Can also concern the dummy;
• The baby is uncomfortable sucking or something hurts him;
• Errors in feeding, for example, too frequent breast changes (how to breastfeed);
• Changes in milk flow, some babies do not like too strong a flow of milk, others slow it down. This can and should be fought;
• Commonplace colic;
• The baby was forced to wait too long for the chest, and he is no longer able to cope with the insult and can bend and refuse to breast;
• Breast rejection for various reasons not related to lack of milk.

As you can see, the baby can behave this way not from the fact that you do not have enough milk, this is the last, and not the first thing you should think about in such a situation.

“The child does not sleep at all during the day! And if you give the mixture, it pounces on the bottle and after the mixture falls asleep for several hours! ”

And again, the conclusion is made - there is not enough milk, it is not as it should, it is not fatty, not nutritious, etc.

When talking with mom, it almost always turns out that the baby falls asleep on his hands and can oversleep for an hour and a half, but when you try to shift it to bed, it wakes up instantly and everything starts in a circle (we read an article on this subject: the child sleeps only in the arms, but put it wakes up - a problem or not) Or the child inevitably wakes up when trying to swear at him with a column and then follows a long laying, motion sickness and other delights. Important to understand that for a little person to feel safe and secure it is necessary to feel the warmth, smell and closeness of his mother, and not only when he is awake. This is natural and normal for him. Solving the problem of full sleep of the baby and mom’s mobility, as a rule, helps sling. And he is gaining more and more popularity among nursing mothers.

However, many mothers, receiving a message from the older generation: “Do not get your hands on it!” and wanting to take a break from wearing on their hands, they begin to give a mixture and are amazed that the baby can sleep for 3 hours without waking up. Some mothers perceive this as a blessing and begin to doubt the need for breastfeeding in principle.But then you need to dig deeper and figure out why, why is this happening? And the trick is that the mixture contains foreign protein, so that the mixture is absorbed more slowly and heavily, the child falls into a deep sleep, not because he is well and full, but because all his strength goes into digesting the mixture. In addition, the baby, when sucking a bottle, often sucks it while the mixture continues to pour, as a result, it can be very overeating, then sleep can go into a stressful stage. I think every mom understands that this is not good.

Another way out of their situation, which the mothers find, is to send a peanut for a 3 hour walk with dad or grandmother. And everything seems to be fine, too, baby doll is sleeping on the street, mom is resting. But upon arrival home, the child clings to the chest with a death grip and may not let it go for several hours, being afraid to lose it again. To prevent this from happening, in the first months of feeding, it is better if the walks last no more than an hour.

Dear mothers, when you start to complain that the baby doesn’t get away with it, doesn’t sleep without you, hangs on your chest, that you don’t have time to do anything at home, please remember that time is very fleeting and with this baby this will not happen again. That your child will be small only once, and that he so urgently needs you, he will be only now.

We also read: how to wean a child by hand

“In the morning, the chest is bursting with milk, and in the evening there is little milk and the baby is worried at the chest. So there’s not enough milk? ”

In order to understand what is happening, you need to know the physiology of lactation. It is at night and in the early morning hours that the peak of prolactin lactation hormone production is peak, and milk is actively produced. In addition, during the night of feeding, as a rule, less often than during the day, milk accumulates and in the morning the chest bursts from it. During the same day, the baby has a lot of reasons to apply, feeding increases, breasts are emptied more often. This does not mean that there is no milk or it is not enough, it just does not accumulate and its flow is somewhat weakened. This can make the little one nervous, especially if he sometimes gets a bottle or a dummy. Such babies really do not like a weak flow, if you remove foreign objects of sucking, the situation gradually normalizes.

Usually, in the evening, the crumbs accumulate fatigue, impressions during the day, the kids are preparing to go to bed, and therefore in the evenings you can often observe that the mothers are fed non-stop. It is important to understand that such behavior, as usual, is normal.

Sometimes, too restless behavior in the evenings can be a consequence of difficult births, stimulation in childbirth, pain relief. Also, in rare cases, it makes sense to seek help from an experienced osteopath.

As you can see, evening “hangs” on the chest are not explained by a lack of milk, but by completely different reasons, for example, the peculiarities of the lactation and the nervous system of the baby.

So, dear mothers, we walked through common situations and concluded that it is impossible to base our suspicions about a lack of milk only on our own feelings and behavior of the crumbs. Most often, these suspicions are completely groundless.

If the anxiety does not leave you, do not count for work, track the number of urinations in the child per day, analyze the dynamics of weight gain, this will save you and your baby from unjustified feeding. If the results do not satisfy you, you can assume a real lack of milk, try to pay attention to the correct application, frequency of feeding and think about the introduction of additional food, if necessary.

We also read:

How to increase lactation of breast milk at home (folk remedies and tablets) -https://kid.htgetrid.com/en/kormlenie-grudyu/kak-povyisit-laktatsiyu-grudnogo-moloka.html

How to restore lactation - 10 main recommendations -https://kid.htgetrid.com/en/kormlenie-grudyu/kak-vosstanovit-laktatsiyu-10-glavnyih-rekomendatsiy.html

Fundamental advice to nursing mothers on breastfeeding -https://kid.htgetrid.com/en/kormlenie-grudyu/grudnoe-vskarmlivanie.html

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