Breast-feeding your baby

Sitting or lying

You can sit or lie down to breast-feed.

How to breast-feed

Breast-feed your baby as follows:

• Put the baby’s belly against yours.
• Bring the baby with its nose to your nipple height.
• The baby opens its mouth and licks the nipple.
• The nipple and a large part of the areola are in the baby’s mouth.
• The baby’s lips are curled outwards. The baby sucks.

Signs that your baby is hungry

New-borns should be fed often. Feed the baby when it asks for it. It is common to have 8 - 12 meals or more the first couple of weeks. Afterwards, the number of meals decreases gradually for most. 

If your baby is hungry, it can give you one or more of the following signals:

• It moves its arms;
• It moves its mouth and tongue;
• It licks or sucks its hands;
• It is agitated;
• It cries. 

It is easier to understand the baby's signals early if you keep it close to you and with much skin-to-skin contact. Some babies are unable to express that they need to be fed, and should be woken every three hours. 

Healthy habits while breast-feeding

Breast-milk is almost always the best food for the baby. Still, you need to be aware that part of all you eat, drink or in other ways intake will be passed on through the breast milk. You should therefore:

• Avoid smoking or using other tobacco-products, or at least allow as long time as possible to pass between breast-feeding and smoking/using tobacco.  
• Avoid alcohol for at least the first six weeks, and later limit the intake.
• Avoid other drugs. 
• Consult a pharmacist, your doctor or Tryggmammamedisin.no before using medicines. 
• If you have HIV, you shouldn't breast-feed your baby.

 If you cannot breast-feed you must use baby formula. There are other ways to bond with your baby.