The week after Thanksgiving J and I took a breastfeeding class at the hospital where we'll deliver. It's also where we took our childbirth preparation classes and where we were thinking about taking newborn care, but have been having a tough time getting that scheduled. Anyway, one of my close friends who had a really successful breastfeeding experience (she was able to pump after returning to work full-time for an entire year) recommended taking a class. I thought the class was very informative and helpful. The nurse who taught the class was also a lactation consultant and had successfully breastfed all four of her children for around 18 months each! Wow, I'm hoping to make it to the 6 month mark exclusively breastfeeding and then to the year mark before stopping completely.
I really want breastfeeding to go well, and I'm starting to get a little nervous that it won't. I'm planning to see the lactation consultants at the hospital each day that I'm there and really commit myself to having a successful experience. I'm trying to decide if I should purchase any books about breastfeeding. At our class they gave us a list of websites that seemed really helpful, so I'm kind of leaning towards using those and just seeing how things go at first. Any recommendations you've heard for a successful breastfeeding experience?
Hey!! We want to BF too, but are emotionally prepared due to my PCOS if we can't. But fingers crossed!!
ReplyDeleteBooks don't work for me, I just can't MAKE myself read them. We took our Marathon Child Birth Class that touched on BF this weekend. The nurse teaching suggested we take the 1.5 hr exclusive BF class, which we're going to sign up for. She also said to meet with a lactation consultant PRIOR to delivery. My OB's practice has a LC on staff so I'm going to meet with her once we take the BF class - probably in mid-late January. If your OB doesn't have its own LC, most hospitals do and I'm sure they'd be willing to talk before hand.
And talk with your BF mommy friends. They have been a big help to me so far!