What does an infant understand? How to tell if your newborn is full of milk while breastfeeding. How to help your child when a problem arises

During the process of breastfeeding, young mothers often tend to incorrectly assess the satisfaction of hunger in their baby, forcibly giving him the breast or, conversely, taking it away too quickly.

A very important question is how to understand that a baby has had enough of breast milk. Before the age of one year, the baby should be examined every month by a local pediatrician, who can objectively assess the lack of nutrition in an infant, find out its causes and write out recommendations for eliminating the problem. However, women prefer to independently determine whether their child is full or not.

Criteria for assessing whether a child is getting enough milk

A woman should never rely on a subjective opinion about whether her newborn is getting enough breast milk. To assess the baby’s appetite and the amount of milk entering his body, there are specific signs that you should rely on.

Correct sucking

Proper latching is often a key factor in adequate feeding. The child should completely grasp the nipple with his mouth along with the areola, leaving only a small part below. While sucking, the baby makes rhythmic movements: lowering the chin, returning the chin to its place and a pause, which indicates swallowing milk. The mother should note the presence of all components of the act of sucking and, especially, the pause. The longer it is, the more milk enters the child’s body at this moment.

Character of the chair

To understand whether a newborn is getting enough breast milk, changes in stool should be assessed. In the first few days after birth, your baby's stool is dark green, called meconium. Such feces accumulate in the infant's intestines during fetal development and are released in the first few days. The stool of a breastfed baby without impurities should be light, of uniform consistency and odorless. In practice, there are differences from the norm that do not indicate pathology. If within 3 days after birth the baby's stool becomes lighter, then we can say that he is getting enough of his mother's milk.

Urination

Urine in young children should be almost colorless and odorless. In the first six months, the act of urination occurs 10 or more times a day, which indicates the sufficiency of breastfeeding. Since the advent of diapers, it has become more difficult to observe the urination of a baby. The evaluation criterion will be at least 6 filled diapers removed from the baby. In the first few days, children experience hematuria, which indicates the presence of red blood cells in the urine. The liquid takes on a reddish tint. Mom should not be afraid of this, since the condition is considered a variant of the norm and goes away with sufficient milk feeding.

Weight gain

When a mother is breastfeeding, tracking weight gain will help you find out if the baby is getting enough to eat.

In the first year of life, the baby must gain a certain amount of weight every month. During the first half of the year, monthly weight gain should be at least 600 grams, and for the next 6 months - 800 grams. By the time a baby is one year old, it should weigh an average of 10 kilograms. To evaluate the milk consumed, a procedure such as control weighing is used.. Its objectivity is determined by the following nuances:

• the procedure is carried out several times;
• choose the same time of day for weighing;
• the child should be as calm as possible, so weighing is performed at home;
• The baby's clothes should be the same every time.

To understand whether a baby is eating enough, you need to find out how much he eats at a time and compare it with the standard indicator. Control weighing is carried out precisely for this purpose and involves measuring the baby’s body weight before and after feeding. The difference in weight will be equal to the amount of milk sucked.

What are not evaluation criteria?

Women should never rely on criteria that they have come up with themselves or heard from friends. Most of these factors are subjective and do not in any way indicate that the baby is getting enough breast milk and does not require additional feeding. The most common erroneous signs that do not indicate that the child is eating enough are:

• the baby’s moodiness at any time, including after feeding (the baby’s crying can be caused by a huge number of reasons);
• the mother’s feeling that she has little milk (every woman produces a certain amount of milk, which her child should be fed with);
• the baby completely empties the breast (if there are no signs of weight loss, then this phenomenon is a variant of the norm);
• the child does not refuse supplemental feeding from a bottle (this test does not indicate whether the baby is full or not, and can provoke his refusal to breastfeed).

The optimal solution would be to entrust the assessment of the success of feeding and whether the child is full to the local pediatrician or his nurse. However, the mother should know at least the basic criteria that determine the need to see a doctor.

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You can determine whether a young mother has enough breast milk and whether her baby is getting enough of it if you know the main signs of malnutrition. They are formulated by WHO and tested by millions of girls. We are studying the issue.

Signs that you have enough milk

At least 10 used diapers while breastfeeding

One of the main indicators that the baby is eating enough is the so-called wet diaper test. The physiology of the baby is such that most of the fluid received by the baby comes out in the form of urine. Let's count.

WHO standards stipulate that on average a child should receive approximately 150 ml of milk per 1 kg of his weight. That is, a three-kilogram baby should eat about 450 g of milk per day. And he will “prescribe” from half to three quarters of this figure - that is, 240-400 g.

How can a mother understand whether the baby has “given away” his norm? It is enough to know that the desire to pee in a baby occurs when the volume of the bladder is 20-40 ml. It turns out that a breastfed baby should pee 10-20 times a day if he has enough mother’s milk.

To count how many “pees” there were, you need to collect all the diapers per day, putting them in a separate, tightly tied bag. Weigh this “valuable cargo” at the end of the day, then weigh the same amount of dry diapers. Now you need to subtract the weight of dry “diapers” from the weight of wet ones and divide by 30. 30 ml is the approximate weight of one “pee”.

Also, to control the emptying of your baby’s bladder, you can use only diapers for one day.

The number of “pees” depends on the age of the baby. Up to two weeks, a child usually pees as many times a day as he is days old. After this age, the number of bladder emptyings is approximately constant: 12-14 times in girls and 14-16 times in boys.

Expert opinion:

Elena Sekacheva, “It often happens that a baby has, for example, twenty “pees,” but does not gain weight or gains very little - this means that the baby spends his weight on something else. Most often it is stress. Stress for a child is hardening, massages, too active diving and gymnastics, change of place of residence, strangers, regular tantrums (long crying for any reason), etc.”

Avoid dehydration in your child

If the child wets less than ten diapers per day, you will have to repeat the test again. One day is not an indicator.

At the same time, pay attention to the color of the urine. With sufficient nutrition, it is transparent, colorless and odorless.

If the baby peed less than six times in a day, we may be talking about dehydration. Mommy should be alert to the following signs:

• Dark color of urine.
• Its pungent smell.
• The break between urination is more than 5-6 hours.
• The baby cries without tears.
• Retraction of a large fontanel.

If the number of “pees” is less than 10, it is recommended to contact a lactation consultant who will help you understand the reason for the lack of milk and increase its volume. In most cases, the mother can feed the baby exclusively with her milk. There are cases when there is not enough breast milk precisely because of the physiological characteristics of the mother, but this is a very small percentage.

Stool in newborns during breastfeeding

Another indicator that a child is eating is how many times he poops. Wet diapers are an indicator that the baby has received a sufficient amount of “fore” milk, and regular bowel movements indicate that the baby has a high-calorie diet and is also receiving “hind”, fattier, milk.

Should be on average two to five times a day. Please note that these are averages. It happens that the child does “big things” after each feeding, it happens that once a day or even every other day. All this is within normal limits if the following conditions are met:

• The stool is soft and mushy.
• Yellowish-brownish color.
• Does not have a repulsive, putrid odor.

If you have bowel movements less frequently, your stool may be a little stiffer. Its color may also change depending on what mommy ate. If the baby’s behavior does not change, he does not start crying, does not show anxiety, and there is no reason to worry.

Baby weight gain

Most weight gain charts are based on observations of bottle-fed babies and are not always entirely appropriate for breastfed babies.

The weight gain graph is a fairly average thing. Mom needs him to navigate, but there is no need to see him as the ultimate truth and strive to meet his performance at any cost. After all, all children are different: some gain more, some less. However, weight gain is an important indicator of the baby's well-being. One rule is important: every month the child should grow and gain weight.

At the same time, do not forget that on the third or fourth day after birth, the baby inevitably loses body weight, up to approximately 10% of its weight at birth. But in the next 10-14 days he should gain them again.

When starting to calculate weight gain, the minimum weight should be taken as the starting point. On average, a baby up to six months should gain 500 g per month or 125-150 g per week.

Expert opinion:

Elena Sekacheva, lactation consultant:“An increase of 500 g per month is the lower limit at which it is worth seeking help from a lactation consultant to together find the reason for the low gain. Normally, the increase should be 700-800 g per month or more. There is no maximum limit. Breastfed children do not become obese; you should not increase the intervals and give your baby water if he is gaining a lot. In the future, he will begin to move more actively and will stop “gaining” weight so quickly. There’s no need to worry about this.”

If you have problems with weight

Every month, mother and baby should visit a pediatrician, who will measure all indicators of the baby’s development - both his weight and height. Such manipulations once a month are enough to monitor the normal development of the child. Therefore, there is not much point in using home scales. In addition, when measuring the baby’s weight, mothers usually begin to get nervous if he has not reached the norm by at least 10 g. They begin to weigh him more often, and try to supplement him with water or formula. As a result of these worries, milk production may actually decrease.

• Always weigh your baby at the same time.
• Weigh your baby in the same clothes, or better yet, without them at all.
• If you weigh a baby in a diaper, it must be absolutely clean and dry.
• You should not weigh your child more than once a week. This makes both mother and baby nervous.

Check weighing

The so-called “control weighing,” when the baby is weighed before feeding and immediately after, is actually not very informative. After all, a child can drink a different amount of milk at each meal, especially if he is fed “on demand” and not according to a schedule. It would be more correct to devote a day to control weighing: when before each feeding and immediately after, the mother weighs the baby to find out the weight gain, and then writes it down. At the end of the day, all the indicators are added up, and the approximate amount of milk drunk per day is obtained.

Breast milk - enough or not?

Often, a mother’s anxiety about this is caused by doubt as to whether she has enough breast milk. The exact volume in the bottle is known, but whether there is enough milk in the breast and how much the baby drank, one can only guess.

Here are the most common causes for concern:

Are you one of the many women who have decided to breastfeed? This is a very good choice. Pediatricians have proven that no formula, no matter what it is, can fully replace breastfeeding.

A little time will pass, and you and your baby will begin to understand each other perfectly, but for now you, of course, are interested in how to understand that the baby is full of breast milk? The question, at first glance, is complex. But if you look into it, it will be quite simple to determine.

There are several simple rules on how to understand whether a baby is getting enough breast milk or not:

1. The baby falls off the chest like a “full leech.”
2. After breastfeeding, the child must stop breastfeeding. As a rule, children are very calm and smile or fall asleep.
3. Mom's breasts should be “empty”.
4. The baby should eat not only fore milk, but also hind milk. It is more difficult to obtain, but it is fattier and more nutritious.
5. The baby does not ask for the breast and calmly withstands 3 hours after feeding.
6. This is a very important point in how to determine whether a baby is getting enough breast milk or not. Ideally, you need to feed your baby every 3.5 hours. However, this rule does not apply to the newborn period, when babies often “hang” on the chest simply because they do not want to be separated from their mother. In this case, the baby will not want to be calm at all, but not because he is hungry, but because he is uncomfortable without his mother, because they are still one.

The above factors will help you understand whether your baby is getting enough breast milk. If they are seasoned, then we can safely say that the child is full.

Separately, I would like to highlight babies up to two months old, who may still have gastrointestinal colic. They can demand mother's breast without any time limits. Being in mommy's arms and eating breast milk at the same time not only calms them down, but also helps their tummy not to hurt.

How to understand that an infant is not eating enough is also not a difficult question. A hungry baby will ask to eat very often - every 30 minutes. There may be several explanations for this: he is too lazy to suck your breasts well or your milk is not fat enough. The first reason is quite difficult to deal with. You need to force your child to eat. If your baby has fallen asleep or simply doesn’t want to work hard to get food, wake him up and stir him up so that he eats well. This is very important, because this will determine how he will gain weight and develop in the future. The second reason is typical for mothers who do not eat very high in calories or are simply on a diet.

If you are unable to breastfeed your baby, resort to pumping and bottle feeding. Perhaps the fact that there will be a large hole in the nipple and you will not need to put in as much effort as with breastfeeding, you will be able to feed the baby. In any case, it is better than giving your baby baby food.

So, you can understand whether an infant is full, both by his behavior and by whether he maintains the norm of weight gain characteristic of his age. And if the baby does not eat enough, then you need to make every effort to ensure that breastfeeding continues for at least six months.

The first couple of weeks after the birth of the baby, lactation is just getting better, and the woman’s body adapts to the needs of the child. Milk may come in strongly or, on the contrary, be produced very slowly. All this is considered the norm during such a period. However, then mothers want to be sure that the baby is eating enough and has enough breast milk. The consequences of malnutrition can be a lack of weight and height, so it is very important to know and promptly respond to a lack of nutrition for the baby. In the article we will look at how to understand that a newborn is full, what are the symptoms of insufficient saturation of a small organism.

Mom's fears

A young mother can have endless reasons for worry. One of the most common is worrying about whether the baby is full or whether he has enough milk. Here are a few signs that make a mother suspect that the baby is not getting enough nutrition:

1. The baby eats for a long time without lowering the breast. In fact, this is more than normal, since the baby likes to feel the mother’s warmth. In the first weeks after birth, tactile contact is especially important for him. It is necessary to provide him with this closeness: you can lie together and relax more often. Additionally, each baby is unique and each takes a different amount of time to become satiated.
2. The baby quickly releases the breast. There is no cause for concern here. If you let go of the breast, you should understand that the newborn has eaten or calmed down. Children ask for breast milk not only because of hunger, but also when they experience thirst, discomfort, and desire tactile contact. To satisfy these needs, the breast is needed for a short period of time - to know that the mother is nearby.
3. Feeding too often. In the first few months of life, feeding may be far from routine. The thing is that lactation is just returning to normal, however, the baby’s growth during this period is especially intense.
4. The body adapts to the growing need for breast milk and produces as much as the baby needs to get enough. And the child needs to eat more often in the first months than in subsequent months.
5. The baby is restless and capricious. If the reason for this is malnutrition, then such a reaction is not observed all the time, but soon after feeding. If this is not the case, then the reason most likely lies elsewhere. For example, it could be colic, the child does not sleep well, often cries and calms down only in his arms.
6. The baby releases the breast, but remains restless. This is often due to milk flow rather than milk quantity. You need to make sure that the baby is attached to the breast correctly. Perhaps his tummy hurts, or maybe the mother herself is in an unstable emotional state.

Causes and signs of malnutrition

The reasons why a child is malnourished may be:

• hypogalactia;
• improper attachment to the breast;
• nipple structure;
• lactostasis;
• short frenulum of the tongue.

Hypogalactia is a condition in which milk production is less than the baby needs. The reason may lie in a hereditary predisposition or related to the mother’s lifestyle. This problem can be solved: you should carefully monitor your diet, eat more often, preferably an hour before the intended feeding. Drink more fluid - at least two liters daily. In this case, drinks should be as natural as possible: fruit drink, compote, green tea, juices and water. In pharmacies you can buy special herbal teas that stimulate milk production. Frequently putting your baby to the breast also helps improve lactation. It is important to monitor your psycho-emotional state and not get nervous.

Incorrect latching to the breast often causes discomfort for the baby, he is unable to breastfeed fully and remains hungry. Cracks appear on the mother’s nipples, causing pain during feeding, the woman is tense, which cannot but be transmitted to the baby.

The structure of the nipples. If mom's nipples are inverted or flat, this makes it difficult for the baby's lips to latch onto them. In such cases, patience and perseverance are required; a couple of weeks after the start of feeding, the breasts change shape, and the nipples stretch out and no longer cause so much discomfort. At first, you can use special breast pads or express milk into a bottle.

Lactostasis. Milk stagnation, or lactostasis, is a very common problem among nursing mothers, especially in the first months after the birth of a child. The fact is that if there is a lot of milk, the baby is not able to completely empty the breast. The mammary gland swells and feeding becomes difficult. In its advanced form, lactostasis can lead to a deterioration in the mother’s well-being. How to understand whether a newborn is full of milk if liquid remains in the chest after feeding, we will consider later in the article.

For prevention purposes, after each feeding it is necessary to express milk, put the baby to the breast more often, lightly massage the breasts during feeding, and wear a properly selected bra.

A short frenulum does not allow for proper latching and sucking. Usually, if there is such a problem, the mother is informed in the maternity hospital or during the first examination by the local doctor. This situation can be resolved and should not cause concern.

How to understand that a child does not have enough food

Understanding whether a newborn is getting enough breast milk, what the baby wants, what worries him is not always easy, especially if this is the first-born. He expresses his demands by crying and screaming. If half an hour after feeding he is dissatisfied with something, most likely he is bothered by the feeling of hunger.

Sometimes a nursing mother faces problems. The baby is simply lazy and wants to suck breast milk through the nipple and falls asleep at the breast. In this case, you need to wake him up, not letting him sleep until he finishes his meal. If, due to certain circumstances, he is uncomfortable taking the breast, he is fed through a bottle and the portion of what he eats is monitored.

Another important indicator that a child is not eating enough is a slight weight gain. It all depends on the age of the child; on average, it should not be lower than 120 g per week.

Behavior of a full child

To understand whether a newborn baby is full, it is worth observing his behavior:

• a well-fed baby's mood rises;
• he falls asleep well and sleeps soundly;
• almost never capricious;
• his skin is pink, elastic and does not collapse at the location of the fontanel.

According to research, a healthy breastfeeding woman produces as much milk as her baby needs. This does not depend at all on the child’s weight or breast size.

We count the amount of liquid released

You can tell if your newborn is full of breast milk by measuring the volume of urine excreted. The main advantage of this method is that the very next day the mother knows whether her baby is full. To do this, you need to know the amount of fluid secreted and the volume of milk consumed per day. The first indicator is calculated experimentally, and the second - by formula.

The algorithm of actions here is as follows:

1. All used diapers per day are stored in a plastic bag, which must be tied so that the baby’s urine does not evaporate, and feces are removed.
2. The next day, a bag of dry, clean diapers and the corresponding number of urine are weighed. The smaller value is subtracted from the larger value; the resulting number reflects the mass of the released liquid.

Normally, this figure is 46-66% of the daily volume of breast milk consumed. When calculating, the weight and volume of urine are taken as equal. Relative to the volume of fluid secreted, the amount of milk is calculated and compared with normal values.

Counting the number of urinations

The previous method is quite effective and can determine a lack of milk down to a milliliter. However, there is another, simpler method based on counting the number of urinations.

There is no need to count them, since the volume of liquid released is calculated according to the previous method. Considering that the baby excretes approximately 30 ml of urine at a time, further calculations are made.

The daily volume of fluid excreted must be divided by 30 (the volume of urine for each urination), the result will be the number of urinations per day. The norm is 8-14 times a day, provided that they are fed exclusively with breast milk; without water, the minimum indicator will be 8. This way you can understand that the newborn baby is full.

You can determine how much milk a child lacks by adding 50 ml to the number of missing urinations. To determine the volume of urine excreted during the day, it is better to use cloth diapers.

The inaccuracy of the method may be due to the individual characteristics of the baby, who pees little by little but often. Therefore, the number of urinations in this case is not indicative.

Expected weight gain

This method involves weighing used diapers and the corresponding number of clean diapers. In this case, there is no need to clean off feces.

So, if the contents of a diaper per day are 500 g, then most likely the baby will gain 1 kg of weight or more in a month. If the diaper contents are 450 g, the increase will not exceed 700 g. If it is 400 g, then most likely the baby will not gain weight at all, so you need to increase the portion of milk or formula. If the diaper contents are 350 or less, the baby will probably lose weight; it is necessary to introduce supplementary feeding and show the child to the pediatrician. These calculations will help you understand that the newborn is not getting enough formula or milk.

How does a mother feel normal?

Often young mothers worry about the baby's satiety and lack of milk immediately after birth. How can you tell if your newborn is full of colostrum? It is worth remembering that immediately after birth the baby’s stomach is very small and can only digest a few drops. Later it expands and the child begins to eat more. Accordingly, the amount of milk increases.

Let's look at what happens when there is more milk. A healthy baby takes large sips during feeding. After 15 minutes, having eaten, he sucks less intensely and gives up the breast or calmly falls asleep, cuddled up to his mother. The woman feels that the milk in the breast has decreased, it has become softer and sank. The child ate not only the easy-to-follow “first” milk, but also the fatty one at the end.

The mammary glands of nursing mothers are involved in different ways. Some give one breast each feeding, alternating them, others give both at once, since milk does not have time to be produced in sufficient quantities. Most newborns simply do not want to be separated from their mother and do not let go of the breast, even after they have eaten.

How to tell if your baby is full of formula

If a bottle-fed baby, for no apparent reason, begins to behave restlessly: is often capricious, sleeps poorly, loses weight, has problems with stool, most likely he is not eating enough. Often he cannot stand three to four hours between meals. In these cases, it is necessary to reconsider the feeding regimen or try to replace the formula. A pediatrician can help you understand whether your newborn is getting enough formula. The specialist will also advise what food to choose for your baby. The new adapted mixture is introduced little by little, paying special attention to the child’s reaction to the new product.

Properly introduced complementary foods for an infant is the key to his immunity. Having eaten, the artificial baby looks happy and healthy. After feeding, he easily falls asleep, and when awake he is active and smiling. Mom should always carefully monitor the reaction and behavior of the baby. Pediatricians recommend keeping a diary where information about the introduction of a new product, the amount eaten and the baby’s reaction will be entered. Sometimes feeding occurs more often, sometimes less often. The complementary feeding standards recommended by experts are not always suitable for the baby. Everything is purely individual.

Milk is produced depending on the baby's appetite. If he completely empties the chest, it will fill completely. This factor also affects the amount of complementary foods that he needs to be completely satiated. It has also been proven that the fat content of milk increases as the time interval between feedings increases.

What to do when your baby doesn't have enough food

We discussed above how to understand that a newborn has had enough to breastfeed. It is worth knowing about the nuances that will help solve the problem of nutritional deficiency:

1. First of all, you need to adjust the feeding regimen: eat at the appropriate time, at least three to five times daily, and ensure that the diet is balanced.
2. Maintain water balance in the body, drink more fluids, including lactation-stimulating teas and herbal infusions.
3. Eliminate from the diet foods that can affect the taste of milk and those that a nursing mother should not eat.
4. Take a daily walk away from polluted roads.
5. Get enough sleep and rest whenever possible.
6. Involve household members in caring for the newborn.
7. Learn how to properly attach your baby to the breast.
8. Be sure to feed at night.
9. Follow the feeding schedule, but do not deny the baby breast milk on demand.
10. If necessary, supplement the baby with expressed milk from a nipple, pipette, or spoon, avoiding their use outside of feeding.
11. Maintain breast hygiene, wash it before each application, apply special softening ointments to the nipples, wipe with a solution of furatsilin or chamomile.
12. Massage your breasts with stroking movements.

Among other things, it is important that feeding takes place in a calm, peaceful environment, away from noise and loud sounds that can frighten the baby.

How to tell if your baby is getting enough breast milk and is getting enough

Whether or not a baby gets enough of breast milk is a question that worries all mothers of babies in the first months of life. For some reason, most women are sure that they will not be able to accurately understand whether the child is full. And there will be systematic fasting - very harmful to his body. How to determine whether everything is in order with nutrition and what to do if the child does not get enough breast milk?

If the child feels well, he:

• calm;
• sleeps well and for a long time (in the first 3-4 months of life), including at night.

If a child is worried and often cries, these are not whims. At such an early age, children are not yet capricious. Something is definitely wrong. But this is not necessarily malnutrition.

A good mother should:

• see if her child is overheated or cold;
• check the condition under the disposable or reusable diaper, change it if necessary;
• look at the condition of the tummy, if it is tense - there is a high probability that the child is crying from intestinal colic.

A little later, by 4 months, you can expect pain from teething; it would be a good idea to check the condition of your gums.

Whether the reason for the baby’s crying has been found or not, the baby needs to be breastfed. She will at least calm him down. Now pay attention to how the baby takes the breast. Is he actively sucking? So he was really hungry. When should I stop feeding? How can you tell if your baby has had enough of breast milk and can wean the breast? It all depends on the child’s activity. There are children who literally suckle very actively from birth; 5-10 minutes are enough for them to be completely satisfied. And there are children who suckle slowly and often doze at the breast. These babies need to be kept at the breast longer. In the first 2-3 months, sometimes for an hour. If such a “lazy sucker” is quickly torn from the breast, he will soon cry again from hunger. And the mother will notice signs that there is not enough milk during breastfeeding and the baby is not getting enough of it. Yes, yes, lactation with such superficial sucking also suffers greatly. And ultimately, the baby’s appetite will awaken, and it will be problematic to get milk from the mother’s breast, since the mammary glands will adapt to the child’s reduced milk requirements.

The reasons why a nursing mother has little milk usually lie precisely in her reluctance to feed the baby for a long time and often. Many mothers find it easier to give formula, water or a pacifier to calm the baby. But the less the baby sucks at the breast, the less milk there is. It's a vicious circle. And one day the transition to artificial feeding will become truly necessary.

From all this, the rule follows that the baby will be full of breast milk if the mother begins to breastfeed him as often as possible, without a schedule. Usually this difficult time for a woman does not last long, and after a few weeks the baby will require the breast much less often. Lactation will be established, and fears about the amount of milk will disappear.

If it seems to you that the milk is thin and the baby is not getting enough, but he feels good and is gaining weight well, throw these thoughts out of your head. The qualitative characteristics of milk cannot be carried out by eye. The appearance of milk is not at all informative. Even very clear milk with a bluish tint, which is considered low-fat, is very nutritious for a child. Such pale milk is foremil, and hindmilk is richly white. But when expressing, it is not always possible to get to hind milk. Hence all the erroneous conclusions.

How can you tell if your baby is getting enough breast milk and is getting enough - what do doctors advise? Usually there are two recommendations - control pumping at home to determine the amount of milk in the breast or control weighing of the child before and after feeding (this can be done at the clinic). But both of these methods are now harshly criticized due to lack of information and erroneous judgments, as a result of which the mother actually begins to lose milk... out of frustration.

Effective ways to increase lactation

1. Drink more, don’t starve. A nursing mother often feels thirsty, and this has a bad effect on her well-being. Just like malnutrition. No slim figure is worth the stress of a nursing mother. You need to eat plenty, varied, but correctly. It is advisable to abstain from flour products, cow's milk and sweets. Sweets and milk will only lead to bloating of the child’s intestines if the mother’s diet consists mainly of them. By the way, neither cow's nor goat's milk, nor condensed milk, stimulate female lactation, contrary to popular belief.

2. Relax and be in a good mood. Don't see motherhood as a burden. That is why women are recommended to find themselves an assistant or a house help at least for the first month of their child’s life. Invite your mom or husband to help. Let them take care of the house and you take care of the child. Then lactation will be established successfully and even thoughts about formula will not arise.

3. Feed the baby only in a comfortable position and while relaxing as much as possible. When mom is relaxed, reading an interesting book, watching her favorite TV series, looking at photos on social media. nets, etc. - milk flows occur more often. This means that the baby eats faster and sleeps peacefully.

4. Feed on demand, regardless of the clock. This is the basic rule for long and successful lactation. In the first months, you may have to feed the baby every hour, but at 4-5 months the frequency of breastfeeding and the duration of feedings will certainly decrease.

Is it worth taking drugs to increase lactation? Typically these include various herbal teas. You can, if you believe in their effectiveness and you like their taste. But if you do not follow the four points described above, problems with lactation will not disappear even if you drink this tea all day long.