How Do You Know If Your Baby Is Getting Enough Breast Milk?
After months of hopeful and excited waiting, your baby is now in your arms. You have now become a “mother” with that miraculous bond established in between.
Now you are embarking on your breastfeeding journey when your baby needs you the most. You will experience how the nutrients in breast milk help your baby develop and grow in a healthy way, and how they heal you during the postpartum period.
Keep track of your baby's weight. Your baby may lose weight in the first days after birth, but should regain the lost weight within a few weeks.
It will be better for both you and your baby if you breastfeed your newborn baby 8 to 12 times a day, that is, every 2 or 3 hours in the first weeks. This frequency may increase with growth spurts.
Suggestions for Increasing Breast Milk
First of all, it is important to be calm and rested in order to increase breast milk. Although it is difficult for you to rest while taking care of your baby and doing housework during this period, when your baby sleeps, if you have the opportunity to sleep or lie down during the day, it will be effective for increasing breast milk.
Using the right breastfeeding position, your baby's grasp of the breast while feeding, and the fact that the breast is completely empty are the main factors that affect the increase in breast milk. You can visit our Breastmilk & Breastfeeding blog posts to learn more about breastfeeding.
Milk production may slow down or stop in a tense and incompletely emptied breast. Therefore, after one breast is breastfed, the other breast should be switched.
Breastfeeding at night increases your milk production. If your baby does not wake up, expressing and storing your milk is among the solutions you can use.
Squeezing the breast with scissors while breastfeeding can cause blockage of the milk ducts. You should breastfeed by holding your breast with the letter C on the top and bottom and pressing it lightly.
Pay attention to feeding from both breasts and alternate between breasts, giving each breast a different one. Both breasts need to be emptied to increase milk production. You can use a breast pump to reduce the accumulation of milk in the breasts.
Do not rush the breastfeeding process. In a position comfortable for you and your baby, you can breastfeed until your baby has finished feeding.
The more you breastfeed your baby, the more your milk will increase. You should give your baby only breast milk for the first 6 months. Additional foods that you will give your baby ahead of time can reduce milk supply, which prevents your milk production. You can breastfeed frequently without your baby crying.
You should not do postpartum diets to lose the weight you gained after giving birth. Adequate and varied nutrition will not only increase the amount of breast milk, but also help you lose your excess weight. When you consume enough and balanced amounts of different foods, you can both manage your weight more easily and breastfeed your baby in a healthier way.
Here are our suggestions to guide you;
• You can increase your milk with easy and fast recipes that increase breast milk.
• Take care to take adequate amounts of proteins such as meat, milk, eggs, carbohydrates such as bread, wheat, oilseeds such as walnuts and hazelnuts, and vegetables and fruits during the day, and to have a varied diet.
• The easiest way to increase your milk is to drink plenty of fluids. Try to increase your consumption of milk, ayran, soup, compote, tzatziki and most importantly water.
• You should take care to consume seasonal fruits. Since there are plenty of chemical supplements in unseasoned fruits, these fruits are not included in the list of foods that increase breast milk.
• You should add foods with high nutritional value such as barley, black sesame, cumin, basil, dill, garlic, oatmeal, olive oil, fennel, flaxseed oil, sesame oil to your meals.
• Vitamin D is important for the development of your baby's muscles and bones. Therefore, go out into the daylight with your baby every day.
• Orange-colored vegetables and fruits such as pumpkin, carrot, apricot, and melon support your diet as they are rich in beta carotene. Beta carotene, which can help you close your vitamin A deficiency, also plays a very important role in strengthening the immune system of you and your baby.