It looks so natural, a baby at the breast, but you might have learned that positioning your own little one is not as easy as it appears. Don’t worry, it gets easier.
Positioning Pointers: First, find a comfortable place to feed your little one. If you’ll be nursing sitting up, choose a supportive chair with arm rests. Have several pillows handy. Undress your baby, down to her diaper. Skin-to-skin contact stimulates babies, helping them to remain awake and alert during a feed. For this reason, it’s best not to swaddle your baby while nursing.
No matter what position you choose, tuck your baby in close, make sure her whole body is well supported and her head, neck, and back are in a straight line. You shouldn’t be leaning back or forward as you get ready to bring your baby to your breast.
During your baby’s first weeks, try a few of these common nursing positions to see what works best for you and your baby.
Clutch (Football) Hold
When this works best: This can be one of the easiest positions to use with a newborn. It works well if you have large breasts, if your baby has latch-on or sucking problems, if you’ve had a cesarean, if your baby arches at the breast, if you have a rapid milk ejection reflex, if your baby is small, or if you have twins. This position allows you to see your baby latch on, giving you better control.
How to do it: Sit in a comfortable chair. Use pillows, if needed, under your baby to bring her to breast level, and for support under your arm. In this position, your baby is lying alongside you, upper back resting on your forearm with her neck supported by your hand. Her head faces your breast. Your hips are flexed, bottom rests against the chair back, and feet point to the ceiling. Your opposite hand will support your breast. Your baby should not be so far forward that she has to bend her neck to latch on.
Cradle Hold
When this works best: Experienced breastfeeding moms will be most comfortable with this common position. New moms often find it difficult to control the baby’s head and watch latch-on in this position.
How to do it: Sit in a comfortable chair. Use pillows, if needed, under your baby to bring her to breast level and for support under your forearm. Your baby will be on her side, her chest facing your chest. Make sure her lower arm is comfortably placed along her side. When nursing from the left breast, cradle your baby’s head in the crook of the left arm, and her back will be along your inner arm and palm. If you look down at your little one, you will see her side. Use the opposite hand to support your breast.
Cross-Cradle (Transition) Hold
When this works best: This position works well for feeding a newborn, for babies with difficulty latching (and staying) on, and for small or premature babies. This position allows you to see your baby latch on, giving you better control.
How to do it: Sit in a comfortable chair. Support your baby with a pillow on your lap to raise her to breast level, and use pillows as needed to support your arms and hands. Your baby will be lying on her side, facing you. Support your breast with the hand on the side that you will feed your baby (left breast, left hand). Use your other arm to support your baby’s body. Guide her to your breast, placing your hand on her neck, the palm of your hand between her shoulder blades.
Lying Down (Lying on Side or Flat on Back)
When this works best: Lying down can be very helpful when a baby is having trouble nursing. It is also a good choice when you want to get rest while your baby nurses, if you have a very abundant milk supply, and if you must remain flat after a cesarean. This position may take a little practice, but it’s well worth the effort.
How to do it: Lie on your side on the bed with your baby facing you. Tuck pillows behind your back and your baby’s back, and under your head and upper knee, as needed for comfort and support. Your bottom arm can be up or held slightly below shoulder level, cradling your baby’s head. Her ear, shoulder, and hip should be in a straight line, with her knees pulled in close. You can feed from both breasts, leaning over your baby to offer the other side, or hold your baby to your chest and roll to the other side. If you want to lie on your back and nurse, drape your baby across your body and allow her to latch on. You can also sit on the side of the bed and get your baby latched on and then lie back.
Safety Notes
Pain is an indication that something is wrong. Though passing nipple tenderness is normal in the first few days, if nursing hurts or you have trouble positioning your baby, get help. Breastfeeding should be comfortable, even in the early weeks. Schedule a visit with a board-certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) who can observe a complete feed and offer recommendations.
Pillows can pose a suffocation hazard for babies, so remove any pillows under your baby when it’s time to sleep.
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Shy about breastfeeding in public? Here’s everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask. And if you have any of your own tips or stories, please share them!
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Babies breastfeed, and if they are very lucky, in the West, they are allowed to follow their biological norm and breastfeed into toddlerhood.
There is no ‘natural’ time to fully wean an infant, and thus refuse it your breast. All infants give up breastfeeding themselves, when they have finished with it, and move on. This usually occurs sometime between their 3rd and 4th birthday, but many leave the breast earlier, some leave the breast later.
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.html
Culture, and how we live our lives, usually interferes with the infant’s decision, and imposes a ’set’ time on the activity. This can be from as early as 6 weeks!
Jesus, as part of his own culture, was probably breastfeeding until he was 3 years old, and then there would have been a weaning party, for everyone in the community to celebrate his growing into another phase of his life.
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/2/t026400.asp
3 years is a common ’set time’ for many cultures, as it appears to give the child as much support and comfort and brain building milk as it needs, and then returns the mother to fertility for another child once those needs have been met.
The Koran asks that every mother allow their baby to breastfeed for at least 2 years.
The West (where sexual ownership of the female’s body has deemed that breasts are first and foremost sexual, as opposed to how you feed babies) is the most severe in repressing breastfeeding toddlers. Such is the confusion and anxiety about breasts, there are ingrained attitudes that even newborn babies breastfeeding is actually an imposition on the sexual nature of the breast! Some areas of countries such as the USA, demands that male babies are weaned from the breast faster than female ones, as the sexual nature of the breast somehow threatens the father, the mother, and the baby.
This flies in the face of all the scientific, and social, research into the issue. Time and again, the benefits of normal term nursing - allowing the baby to continue to breastfeed as it chooses to - are shown in study after study. With a safe and secure, comforting and loving physical environment from which to view the painful and confusing world that is toddlerhood, the toddler still having access to the breast is more secure, more resilient, more confident and more independent than those forcibly weaned before their time. And still benefittng greatly from the unique nutrition that builds their brains and bones and blood perfectly.
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/index.html
Mothers benefit too, with protection from breast cancer etc, lost to the mother who has weaned, increasing her risk of such illness. Oxytocin from the breastfeeding biology, floods both mother and child with contentment, and helps both overcome the stresses of toddlerhood.
Therefore, the children least likely to benefit from the astounding brain building abilities of human milk, and the ones most in need of developing emotional resilience, are the ‘most privileged’ on the face of the planet. The cultures with so much, often give their infants too little.
The joy you can see on this 2 year old’s face, says it all, really. Her world is overflowing with the milk of human kindness.
http://www.wiessinger.baka.com/bfing/older/mouths.html
The World Health Organisation recommends that all babies are allowed to receive only breastmilk for the first six months of their lives, and then to be allowed to breastfeed for a minimum of two years. Thereafter, breastfeeding should continue for as long as mother and child mutually desire.
http://www.who.int/child-adolescent-health/NUTRITION/global_strategy.htm
The contradictions and confusions in the West are so extreme, that a mother allowing her toddler to breastfeed, can be viewed as abnormal, when she lives in a culture that uses images of breasts, to sell cars. Go figure.
http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.com/2008/01/normal-nursing-donovandettwyler-article.html
Few mothers start their journey with their breastfeeding babies, with the intent to keep going past 2 years of age. Most fall into just putting off the decision on giving up on something so worthwhile, and so important to their child. Pressure from others can be unbearable and some mothers wean to stop the criticism…
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/criticism.html
http://touchinglynaive.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/extended-breastfeeding/
… but mostly, the attitude normal term nursing mothers take is.. if it ain’t broke, it don’t need fixed.
http://www.babble.com/content/articles/columns/extremeparenting/001/
You can post photos of your own breastfeeding toddler, at
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21420487704
and there is a wonderful compilation video of breastfeeding children on:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=942FRjAJhxU
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This video answers the question: “How often should I breastfeed my baby?” For more information go to:
http://www.breastfeedingbasics.info/blog
http://www.breastfeedingbasics.info
Duration : 0:2:12
Latest in a series of bf training programmes by the renowned Sally Inch and Chloe Fisher. The dvd/video features computer animation demonstrating correct positioning and attachment of the baby at the breast. Visit www.markittelevision.com for further details
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this article shows how normal and natural it is for an older child to continue breastfeeding
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Eva Herzigova whips out her huge breast to feed her baby as a photographer snaps pictures.
Duration : 0:0:37
www.abelraisescain.com
Posing as Jim Rogers, media hoaxer Alan Abel founded an organization called Citizens Against Breastfeeding, a conservative group that sought to abolish this supposed act of immoral perversion. He claimed that breast-feeding was incestuous and that it led to oral addiction. He also stated that the ‘naughty nipple’ was responsible for many of society’s ills. “Jim” appeared on several news programs and was featured on hundreds of radio shows throughout the country. During the 2000 election year, he and his team of pranksters picketed at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Four years following the introduction of the campaign, the hoax was officially exposed in a U.S. News and World Report article written by Abel himself. Despite the revelation of the hoax, Jim Rogers still receives requests for interviews from the media.
For more information on Alan Abel and his hoaxing career, visit www.alanabel.com
Duration : 0:1:8
The average momma only breast feeds her baby for around a year, however, some mommas take it much her than that. Even to age 8!
Duration : 0:4:58
This video lets you hear what a breastfeeding baby sounds like when properly latched onto the breast.
http://www.breastfeedingbasics.info
http://www.breastfeedingbasics.info/blog
Duration : 0:2:5
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