Baby Feeding Tips

Female: In the first few hours after birth, babies are hungry and experts agree with very few exceptions, the best food for the baby comes directly from the mother’s breast.

Dr. Hansen: Breast milk is ideally suited for infants. It’s the appropriate protein and carbohydrate and fat at the appropriate concentrations. And not only is it nutritionally balanced for them, but it is also contains protective factors such as antibodies that can help protect infants from disease.

Female: Lactation consultants, breastfeeding experts worked in many hospital and maternity wards like this one, at Coral Springs Medical Center in Florida. They help women get started and are an emotional resource just in case nursing does not go smoothly as nature intended.

Maria: I think emotional support in the beginning is just as important as technical advice and techniques, knowing how to breast milk comes out of the breast, knowing how to milk evolves into mature milk over the first fed days, knowing the babies getting enough, can all help the mother continue breastfeeding and avoid supplementing which good adversely effect her milk’s supply.

Female: The consultants visit new moms at their bedside. Offer tips for waking the baby if she’s sleeping too long between feedings.

Maria: As you can see her eyes start open up a little bit, which is blinking.

Female: Advice about how to know if the baby is getting food and encouragement about what will happen in the next few days.

Maria: This is the week, the first week that you really only have to watch that and wake her for feedings. I think by next week, she’ll be coming to you and you can be more instinctive about when its time to feed her, but just like she’s doing every two to three hours.

Female: So, how can you tell if the babies getting enough to eat? If she has at least six wet diapers per day and two to five loose yellow stools per day, there’s steady weight gain after the first week of age, pale yellow urine, not deep yellow or orange and she’s sleeping well, yet looks alert and healthy when awake.

Michael and Nora Smith try to breastfeed their son Ryan in the hospital, but things did not go well.

Nora: The nurse brought him in for the first day and she said “Here’s you baby”. And he was there with me and I started, you know, to try breastfeed and it just did not work.

Female: So since that time, three and half month old Ryan has been on the lactose free infant formula. It’s important to remember that only breast milk or an iron fortified infant formula should be given to babies in their first several months after birth.

Dr. James: Breast milk or iron fortified infant formulas is the foundation of the diet and liquid intake of infants for the entire first year and in fact, it should be used exclusively in the first four months of life. Various infant formulas differ in their closeness to human milk or the breast milk although most of them will provide perfectly adequate growth and development.

Female: While Nora mixes the bottles and gets them ready for late night feedings or for trips, Michael truly enjoys giving his son a bottle. It’s part of father-son bonding.

Michael: While staring at your eyes, smiling, it makes you feel like you’re doing something for him.

Female: For Michael and Nora, everyday with Ryan presents new opportunities for them to discover what a wonderful addition he his to their very busy, often stressed out lives.


Michael: Yesterday I had a stressful day and then when I came home and held him, he makes me forget everything, the whole entire day and right away to like that.

Nora: Before we had children, I used to hear how the mothers talked about that love that you have and you do not understand it until you have your own child. But then once he looks up at me and grins, it’s the unconditional love that everybody’s always talked about, so true.