The First Days of Breastfeeding Infants: What Are They Really Like?

Valid, important questions – but first of all, I have to warn you: it’s not all pretty.

I absolutely believe that breastfeeding infants is a wonderful, beautiful process, and I have never for one second regretted the choice to nurse my daughter.

However, I think it’s also important for you to know some of the not-so-beautiful aspects of it, so that you know that this is all normal and that it WILL pass. I hope you won’t read this negatively or take this as me trying to dissuade you from nursing – never! I just want to make sure you’re fully prepared, and to know that before long, you will be nursing as though you’ve been doing it your whole life.

(One last disclaimer: I’m also not counting the first days of breastfeeding while in the hospital, when you have a lactation consultant on hand at all times; this is for when you’re back at home, wondering who in the world gave you permission to care for this new human being when you have no idea what you’re doing.)

Some moms are blessed with babies with super-strong sucking reflexes right from the start, so this might not apply to you; but for three to four days after she was born, it kind of tickled when my daughter would nurse – it was such an interesting, soothing, gentle sensation. I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about – this was so easy!

However, as gentle as this started out the first days of breastfeeding infants, it didn’t last very long. Nursing every two hours started to take a toll on my nipples around day five, and it started to burn quite a bit every time she would latch on. Plus, her sucking reflex really started to kick in, and this vigorous sucking – combined with near-constant moisture – made my nipples start to crack and bleed.

I tried several different methods to ease this, and what seemed to work best for me was a combination of regular-strength Motrin – which my doctor had approved for pain following the birth – and lanolin that was safe for use with nursing.

With the lanolin, I would apply this to my nipples immediately after nursing, and then make sure to wipe them off before nursing again, just to be safe. Rubbing a little expressed breast milk on your nipples works well too, but this didn’t really work for me the first few days of applying until a little later, once the cracking had healed a bit.

This might be a good time to mention that if you’re starting to experience shooting pains through your breast while your child is nursing, or if you start to notice your breast(s) become really red and warm, you need to see your doctor as you may have mastitis.

Aside from the physical aspect of nursing, there’s also a lot of exhaustion to contend with as well. Newborns typically need to nurse about every two hours, and my daughter would nurse for about 45 minutes at a time – which meant that I only had about an hour in order to do anything for myself, including sleep.

It wasn’t so bad the first days of breastfeeding infants, since I was on a natural high from giving birth and just really excited to be fawning over my brand-new baby. Once about a week had passed, though, this lack of rest started to take its toll – after all, I was the only one who could feed her!

My husband and I worked out a schedule of times that we were “on the clock” – I would be awake and take care of her for about six hours at a time, while my husband would try to sleep, and then we would switch off for that same amount of time.

When it was my turn to sleep, he would bring me the baby to nurse, then take her back afterwards so I could go back to sleep. It didn’t make for a lot of quality sleep, but it definitely helped to get at least some rest to recharge my batteries a bit.

After a few weeks, we started to get a nice rhythm going, and before long I was nursing without any pain and adjusting to a schedule of short but regular sleep – and before long, you will be too!

Hang in there!

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