Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding Information and Tips

Early and Exclusive Breastfeeding: Your Milk and Nothing Else

Early breastfeeding means starting within an hour of your baby’s birth.  This helps contract the uterus and slow bleeding (important for your recovery).  And provides antibodies and nutrition to your baby.  

Exclusive breastfeeding means that your baby gets all his or her food and drink from breastfeeding.  It is recommended that your baby receives only your milk for the first 6 months.  Your milk has everything baby needs to grow strong and healthy.  It changes according to what your baby needs!  

Talk with your healthcare team about your individual needs and goals for infant feeding.

Why no other liquids and solids until 6 months?  

  • Builds a healthy milk supply and keeps it up
  • Protects your baby from sickness and disease
  • Babies do not need water when it is hot outside.  Your milk provides all the hydration your baby needs.
Breastfeeding

Benefits of Breastfeeding – for You:

  • Convenient: always warm and ready
  • Smart: nothing to buy or prepare
  • Linked with lower risk of disease for breast and ovarian cancers and Type-2 Diabetes
  • Helps your body recover after delivery
  • Increases time before next pregnancy

Benefits of Breastfeeding – for Babies:

  • Early milk (colostrum) is the perfect first food
  • Provides antibodies to help fight off diseases
  • Easy to digest = less cramping and gas

These conditions are less common in babies and children who breastfeed:

  • Ear infections
  • Diarrhea
  • Pneumonia
  • Diabetes
  • Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
  • Stomach infections
  • Overweight and obesity
  • Childhood cancers
  • Heart disease

Continued Breastfeeding

Begin offering other foods to your baby after a full breastfeed when your baby is 6 months old.  Avoid “toddler formulas” for babies aged 6 months and older.  These are costly, high in sugar, and not necessary.  

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends continued breastfeeding for 2 years and beyond, for as long as you and your baby desire.  Continued breastfeeding is beneficial for your baby’s growth and development, and for protection from diseases for both of you.  

Making and maintaining your milk

Your first milk (colostrum) is thick and golden.  Early milk comes in very small amounts – yet is full of nutrients and proteins that boost your baby’s immune system.  Your milk will change over the first 3-5 days into larger amounts of mature milk, which has more water to satisfy your baby’s thirst.  

When the amount of milk increases, it is often referred to as your milk “coming in”.  This is misleading because your breasts were not empty before this time – they just had smaller amounts of colostrum.  

Move it or lose it!

  • Making a full milk supply requires frequent removal of milk from your breasts.  
  • If milk is NOT removed for your breasts, your body is given the message to make less milk.  
  • You can use gentle massage with hand expression and/or pumping to remove milk (and keep making milk) if you are separated from your baby.  
  • Introducing formula can decrease your milk supply.

Signs your baby is getting enough milk

  • Your baby is deeply attached onto your breast and you are comfortable while feeding.  
  • Your baby breastfeeds with steady sucking and swallowing.  
  • Your breasts soften during a feeding.
  • Your baby is content after a feeding.
  • Your baby’s pees and poops are consistent with the information given to you at the hospital or pediatrician's office.
  • Your baby’s stools change from greenish-black to pale yellow, soft, and seedy looking over the first week (when you are exclusively breastfeeding).
  • Your baby’s weight is normal and healthy, according to a lactation or other healthcare professional.
  • It is common for babies to lose weight in the first week of life. They should regain their birth weight by 10-14 days!

Call your baby’s provider if:  

  • Your baby eats less than 8 times in 24 hours
  • Your baby is too sleepy to wake for feeds
  • Feeding your baby is painful
  • Your baby never seems satisfied
  • Feedings last longer than one hour
  • Your breasts are hard, tight, and painful (engorged)
  • Your baby has problems attaching onto your breast or staying attached
  • Your baby has not regained his or her birth weight by 2 weeks of age
  • You are not confident your baby is feeding well

These materials were developed by the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute with collaboration from students in the Mary Rose Tully Training Initiative and lactation consultants at N.C. Women’s Hospital. We would like to thank the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for their generous support of this and other projects that foster a breastfeeding-supportive society.  

For more information please visit, http://breastfeeding.unc.edu. Version 3. English April 2018, last updated August 2024