Our pediatrician’s opinion was to feed on demand for awhile, and then see if my son put himself on a loose schedule, but not force anything, and this made sense to me. After about 3 months he got into a groove of nursing every 2 1/2 – 3 1/2 hours and the doc said this was perfect. She also spent a portion of each of my son’s well-vists discussing how BFing was going for me. This included discussing how long my son nursed for, how often, what my fluid intake was like, and the encouragement to keep going. She never brought up formula, and encouraged me to hold off on solids until my son was at least 6 months of age, and even then to only feed him 1-2x a day at first so he wouldn’t self-wean. My only complaint is that the last time I was in the office there was free formula everywhere, so that might send a subtle message to new moms, but she encouraged BFing so much I think it’s probably not a big deal. Next pregnancy around I’ll ask her if she has an LC she recommends though; I think it’s great to work with a pediatrician who does!

I had a similar experience. At 4 months, my first child was not nursing well and as a result, my milk supply dropped. When I took him to the doctor, she told me that my milk was probably drying up and it might be time to stop BF and switch to formula. It turned out he had an ear infection and wasn’t nursing well because it hurt. After some pain relief and a consult with my LC, he started to nurse well and my supply came back up.

Also, both my children are small. Both were just over 7 pounds at birth, and while I’m tall for a woman (5 foot I have a small frame, and my husband is a slightly built person too. This pede lived and breathed by the (flawed) US growth charts, and at one point, labeled my son FTT and was going to send us to see a specialist. It turned out he had a milk protein allergy that coincided with my milk drying up (for real this time, he was 11 months old and I have thyroid disease), so removing all traces of milk from his diet fixed the problem. But to this day, he’s small for his age (at least according to the US charts), and so is his sister. We ended up switching to a doctor who doesn’t rely so much on growth charts and instead uses them as a tool along with everything else to determine if a child is healthy.

My LC was my savior, she’s a CRNP and IBCLC, and she had suggestions that my pede never even mentioned. She worked with me and was also the source of my breast pump.

My advice would be to take any wisdom from your pede with a grain of salt. She or he may only be marginally knowledgeable about breastfeeding. Go to a LC instead and if that LC tells you something you don’t like or tries to make you feel guilty, find another one.

Kyra- the more you know before having a baby, the better! I think in most of the world, you don’t really have to know that much in order for breastfeeding to be successful. It really is a natural process and babies are born with the instinct to search for the breast, latch on and eat. Everyone breastfeeds, and if you have trouble you can go to your mother, sisters, neighbors. But here in the US (and everywhere formula is heavily marketed and has become accepted as the norm), bottles are given in the hospital and mothers turn to formula when there is a problem since there isn’t enough community-wide support. So many doctors don’t know enough about breastfeeding. I think it’s really important for women to network and talk about breastfeeding before babies and after! Anyway, I’m glad you find it helpful!

Julie and Susan- THANKS! Keep reading