This calls for your own personal taste since the best techniques for feeding your baby are really yours to choose. It doesn’t matter whether you feed your baby sitting up, on your side or when lying down. The golden rule is that both you and your baby have to be comfortable.
You need to get your positioning right. These are your posture, how you hold your baby and how your baby takes your breast.
- Your posture
- Make yourself comfortable: Your baby needs to be well supported. You may want to consider sitting up in bed, back well supported with baby’s head resting in the crook of your arm or sitting on a chair with your back supported.
- Make sure you are not leaning back so that your breasts are not pulled away from your baby and out of his mouth while he tries to feed. Don’t hunch over either.
- Use props for support. Have as many pillows, cushions, soft or firm supports (such as folded rugs or blankets as well as whatever you may want to support your feet) as you need, to support both you and your baby.
- How to hold your baby
- Is held close to you
- Is well supported
- Is facing you
- Has his or her mouth just below your nipple as you prepare to feed
- Has his head, neck and back all in a straight line
- How your baby takes your breast
- Gapes his or her mouth wide open
- Takes as much as possible of the dark skin area around the nipple (the areola)
- Your baby’s chin is against your breast
- The mouth is open wide and the lower lip is pressed down and back against the chin
- The nose lies right against your breast. Notice that the nose lies on the surface of your breast and he or she is free to breathe. You do not need to hold your breast away from the nose.
In summary, the important points to remember about how you hold your baby are that your baby:
Also make sure that the arms and hands do not get in the way as your baby goes to feed.
Make sure your baby takes your breast; do not try to give it to your baby or push your breast into the mouth. As your baby goes on your breast, check that he or she:
Once your baby is feeding well, this is what you should see:
When breast feeding is going well, your nipple will not be damaged, because it is so far back in the baby’s mouth that there is no friction against it. It is the friction that causes both soreness and damage to the nipple. This is why breast feeding shouldn’t hurt.
