Im amazingly lucky in that both of my kids have been so easy to nurse. I hear of other womens experiences and just admire their determiniation because I genuinely am not sure I would have that much commitment. Bleeding nipples? I tap out.
So all that to say I am not an expert. If your lactation consultant taught you something different, ignore me I'm just a crazy lady on the internet. But here are a couple things I learned with my limited nursing experience...
Latch is key
A bad latch will chap the nips and be super painful. When my nipples were toughening up at first, the beginning of every feeding hurt. But eventually it would stop. If it just continues hurting through the feeding, I would relatch for sure. You want a super deep latch and their lips to be folded outward. You can somewhat see this in the photo below. Notice how Evie's lip looks as though its curling upwards towards her nose. That's the shape you want.
Some ways to get a good latch...
My mom taught me the stomach rolling on technique. start with the baby's belly facing up when their mouth is wide open, roll them onto your breast to where your stomach and the babies stomach meet.
The lactation consultant taught me the football hold. You want to hold their head with one hand and you boob with the other. Place your thumb on the top of your breast and pull it back to where it points your nipple upwards. When your babies mouth is really open, you want to bring the babies head towards your nipple and use that thumb to shove in as much boob intheir mouth as possible. With this method I was able to get a super deep latch and did this one when my nipples were sensitive.
Dealing with engorgement....
Being engorged is the worst. Like objectively it's engorgement, musicals, and your first myspace photo. In that order.
I remember my boobs being rock hard-like how I imagine Regina George's moms boobs were. Theyd wake me up in the middle of the night throbbing and theyd leak everywhere. I leaked through like 3 layers onto my bed with "Overnight" bra pads on.
Buuuuttt I've never had a clogged duct or mastitis!
One thing I think was super pivitial in that, is that my mom told me to massage any hard parts out of my breasts-no matter how painful.
Every time my milk comes in, I get in the bath or shower, which starts my let down and massage the hell out of my breasts. It's painful, but I think it's helped ensure I don't get any clogged ducts.
Another option is the haakaa. (I talk more about this in my postpartum essentials blog) But the Haakaa is such a gentle way to release pressure. I did this a lot when I was waking up in the night totally engorged or was out of the house. Luckily you also get to keep the milk this way!
The big thing to remember during this time though is to not fully empty your breasts of milk. That signals to your body to make more because it thinks your baby is still hungry. So just alleviate the pressure to where you aren't uncomfortable and to just when the breasts are starting to get soft.
Lastly, this nipple cream I mentioned in my postpartum essentials is the shit. The first couple weeks I lather this stuff on and change my pads constantly. Even if I wasn't wet from leaking, but my body made it feel damp from just the heat or sweat of my body-I changed them and reapplied nippled cream. The key is just to stay dry but moisturized. Perfectly clearish right?
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