Photo: James Aceino (@younglovemedia)
There were many surprises in the first few days after I gave birth to my daughter Sophie?like the sheer volume of laundry generated by such a tiny person and the constant ache down in Ladyland?but nothing was more unexpected than the amount of time it took for my milk to come in. I?d read that it takes, on average, three to five days. But no one really told me what you?re supposed to do to feed and comfort your baby in the meantime. And friends had said, ?Oh, you?ll know? when I asked them about the signs of milk production ramping up: from the weight of your breasts, the human firehose superpower you acquire, or feeling weepy or unusually emotional. (One friend told me she started crying inexplicably while watching The Price Is Right, and within hours?bam!?her boobs felt like basketballs.) But I kept waiting anxiously and nothing?or what felt like nothing?happened. Turns out, this is fairly typical. For the first few days, newborns want to sleep a lot and can survive solely on teeny drops of colostrum, the yellowish fluid your breasts produce after the baby is born (and sometimes even in the last weeks of pregnancy). It?s often termed ?liquid gold? for being so dense in nutrients and antibodies, despite being low in volume. Infants only need a few teaspoons (six to 13 millilitres) per feeding until your milk production begins.
The nurses in the hospital told me to feed every two hours, even if I didn?t think Sophie was getting anything...