Ways To Take Care of Yourself While Breastfeeding

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Being a new parent is challenging because you are adjusting to caring for a newborn. If you choose to breastfeed or baby, you may face additional difficulties. While breastfeeding is a huge adjustment for both you and your baby, it can be a rewarding experience if you remember to take care of yourself. Here are four tips from Birth and Beyond Doulas that can help you navigate breastfeeding successfully.

Reduce Your Stress

According to one study, 83.8% of babies are breastfed at some point. This percentage drops drastically to 36% at the one-year mark, in part because breastfeeding is difficult, particularly for working parents. The process is new for you and your baby, and it takes time for you to learn these skills. New parents often feel stressed while trying to learn how to breastfeed, and stress can impact the amount of milk your body produces. Your stress levels are imposed by a number of factors after bringing a new baby home. Not only may you be concerned about the health of your child, but you can also be stressed about finances, hormones, finding childcare or adjusting to a new daily routine with a newborn. It’s important to find ways to minimize your stress. Some strategies include:

• Finding time to connect with your partner

• Taking five minutes for yourself at the end of each day

• Meditating every morning

• Learning to say no when asked to take on additional responsibilities

Accept Help

You may think that you can be the primary caregiver for your baby, keep up with household chores and learn to breastfeed at the same time, but these are a lot of responsibilities to juggle. If you’re breastfeeding exclusively, you will have to pump (or feed at the breast) frequently to produce enough milk to satisfy your baby’s appetite. This leaves you with little free time to get other tasks accomplished. Accepting help from friends and family members can help you reduce your stress. Delegate all household chores to other people and focus on learning how to breastfeed properly. The less stressed you are, the quicker you and your baby will get into a rhythm while breastfeeding.

Find a Good Work/Life Balance

New parents often look forward to returning to work to get back to building their careers, but can also experience sadness when leaving their babies in the care of others. Finding a good work-life balance is difficult. You may feel like you need to work to have a sense of accomplishment. At the same time, you may feel guilty for not being present for every milestone your baby reaches. Having a job with traditional business hours that gives you evenings and weekends to spend with your baby can be a good compromise. It’s important to maintain a good pumping schedule if you are still breastfeeding after you return to work. Having a good work-life balance help you readjust to going to work every day.

Try to Enjoy the Experience

As challenging as breastfeeding can be, is important to remember why you chose this method of feeding your child. Breastfeeding is a wonderful way to bond with your baby. Focus on enjoying the experience and loving all of the extra time you get to spend with your child instead of thinking about how difficult it is to breastfeed or pump every few hours. Focusing on the positives of breastfeeding can help you enjoy the process. Find a good support system to vent to when you do need to unload about how hard it is. It takes time to learn how to breastfeed your baby. Feeding your child in this way is often challenging, but if you use these four tips, you can keep you and your baby happy and healthy and navigate breastfeeding more easily.

If you need breastfeeding or infant feeding support, please reach out to us!