Tips for feeding your baby

Your baby will instinctively know how to attach themselves to your breast to feed, but you can help by working out the best position for you both. Hold your wee one close to you, supporting their neck, with their nose level with your nipple. This way, as your baby tilts their head back to feed, your nipple can safely reach the back of their mouth. Try touching your baby’s top lip with your nipple – they’re likely to lift their chin and open their mouth. And if you’re bottle feeding, gently place the bottle teat against your baby’s lower lip, pointing upwards. For tips, read our articles on positioning your baby and correct attachment.

If things aren’t feeling quite right once they have attached, a gentle little finger in the mouth will break their suction so you can start again.

Although your nipples or breasts shouldn’t hurt if your baby is correctly attached, it’s still very common to be slightly tender in the beginning. It takes practice for both you and the baby to get a good position and the baby correctly attached at the breast. Nipple cream can help wound healing if the nipple skin becomes broken – but to avoid hurting your nipples, or if they do become sore, it’s essential to work on positioning and attachment.

Make sure you have everything you might need within arm’s reach before a feed - a magazine, a glass of water, or the remote. It really helps to be prepared. A quick trip to the loo, a well-placed cushion and you’re ready to feed.

When you’re feeding, try to get lots of bare skin-to-skin contact, this keeps them calm and comforted and helps them to build an emotional bond with you.

Making sure that it’s just you feeding the baby in the beginning will help them feel secure. Later on, you can express your breast milk for your partner to bottle feed your baby - but in the early stages, it’s important not to confuse your baby or interfere with your milk supply.

Warm water and hand expressing can help milk flow if you have full or engorged breasts.

If you’re breastfeeding, keep at it – it does get easier with time, and your midwife or health visitor are there to help if you need it.

There are a few things you need to be aware of before you feed your baby formula milk - making up feeds, cleaning and storing bottles must be done in a certain way to avoid your baby getting ill. The video below goes through making up a bottle safely step-by-step.