Feeding
Help with feeding, in the chair you actually use
The most common reason families call a midwife. Whether you are breastfeeding, bottle feeding or doing both, the aim is the same: work out what is happening and make it easier.
How it works
She watches a feed
Describing a feed and having someone see one are completely different things. Almost every useful piece of feeding advice comes out of watching: how your baby attaches, how you are sitting, what your shoulders are doing by minute ten, the sound of swallowing or the absence of it.
So if feeding is the reason you have booked, it helps to time the visit near a feed rather than after one. What you get back is specific to you, not general guidance that applies to everybody and therefore nobody.
The Australian Breastfeeding Association helpline is on 1800 686 268, staffed by trained counsellors at any hour of the day or night.
What she can help with
Whatever is actually happening
Breastfeeding
- Attachment and positioning, adjusted while you feed rather than described
- Pain, which is common and is not something to simply push through
- Worries about supply, and what the reliable signs actually are
- Feed length, frequency and whether your baby is finishing satisfied
Bottle, mixed and expressing
- Feeding techniques, whichever way you are feeding
- Combining breast and bottle without it unravelling
- Wind, reflux and unsettled feeding, and what helps
- How feeding is tracking against your baby's weight
Worth saying plainly
Nobody is here to judge how you feed
Feeding attracts more unsolicited opinion than any other part of early parenthood, and most families have had at least one conversation that left them feeling worse. A midwife's job is not to push you towards a particular method. It is to help the method you are using work, or help you change it without guilt.
If you want to keep breastfeeding, she will help you keep going. If you want to stop, or to combine, she will help you do that safely. Both are legitimate.
When it needs more
Knowing when to bring someone in
Some feeding problems need a lactation consultant, a GP or a paediatric assessment. Part of what you are paying for is a midwife who recognises which ones, and says so early rather than after weeks of struggling.
Timing
Ask sooner than feels reasonable
Families routinely wait weeks before asking for feeding help, usually because they expect it to settle down on its own or feel they should be managing. Some of it does settle. Some of it compounds, and by then everyone is exhausted and a fixable problem has become an entrenched one.
If feeding hurts, if you dread it, or if you cannot tell whether your baby is getting enough, that is reason enough to ask. None of those is a sign you are doing it wrong.
Making the visit count
What helps her help you
- Time the visit around a feed, even a rough one
- Have your pump, bottles or nipple shields out if you use them
- Note roughly how often and how long your baby feeds
- Say what you have already tried, including what did not work
A common worry
"How do I know my baby is getting enough?"
Probably the most asked question in the first fortnight, and the hardest to answer alone, because a breastfed baby does not come with a gauge.
Your midwife looks at the whole picture rather than one indicator: how your baby is feeding, what their nappies are doing, how they are between feeds, and how their weight is tracking across visits rather than on a single day. Taken together those tell a clear enough story, and she can talk you through what yours is saying.
If the answer is that something needs changing, you will hear it plainly and with a plan attached.
A baby who is feeding poorly and unusually sleepy, or who is hard to rouse, is not a wait-and-see situation. Ring your midwife, or Healthdirect on 1800 022 222.
Get feeding help
Feeding not going the way you hoped?
It is the most common reason families book a visit, and rarely something to wait out. Contact a midwife and describe what is happening.