January 3, 2025 • 13 mins
This episode explores the intricacies of breastfeeding, focusing on the timing and duration of feeds. Listeners learn to embrace intuitive feeding methods while considering the importance of community support for their breastfeeding journeys.
• Importance of understanding breastfeeding history and cultural practices
• Encouraging skin-to-skin contact to facilitate breastfeeding
• Introduction to the "Dinner and Dessert" breastfeeding method
• Clarifying how breastfeeding duration varies over time
• Fostering patience and understanding in feeding practices
• Promoting the importance of seeking lactation support and community
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Follow us on Instagram at @birthlearning
Show Credits
Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice, helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hello and welcome to the Ordinary Doula podcast.
I'm so glad you're here today,wherever you are, whenever you
are listening, welcome, welcometo our little podcast.
We try to provide informationabout all kinds of topics
surrounding birth, pregnancy,labor, um, postpartum, lactation
(01:08):
all that cute little package oflife.
Some people will do this oncein their life and it's a big
deal.
Some people do this severaltimes in their life and it's a
big deal.
This is an event that takesyour attention right, like being
pregnant, having a baby, um,that's something.
That's not an experience thatjust slides right by.
It kind of gets our attention.
So people do give a lot offocus and we hope to be a space
(01:30):
and a place that can providesome valuable information and
focus during this time.
Hopefully you find somethinguseful here and or skills you
could take into the rest of yourlife and find.
The empowerment is my favoritepiece of this.
But the joy, the empowerment,the knowledge, the information
that can follow into pregnancy,birth, postpartum and
(01:52):
breastfeeding.
So today our topic is going tobe kind of breastfeeding
oriented for sure.
So I'm going to talk about thetiming of breastfeeding.
There's a lot of scripted waysto feed a baby.
There's schedules.
We don't want to go too longbetween feeds or you don't want
(02:14):
to be feeding too close togetherand the amount of time that we
feed.
It seems like a whole lot ofrecipe type stuff that we're
doing, like you have to do it,like this Very formulaic, and
that that might be the case.
Yes, there's some scriptedthings you want to do and I like
(02:37):
to.
I always like to think aboutback, like what did they used to
do before?
We had this knowledge, thisinformation?
How were we different when wedid that?
And I think back before, whenyou know when breastfeeding was
and I've studied the history ofbreastfeeding.
I think it's fascinating.
I actually did a thesis on itabout 25 years ago, um, and it's
shifted so much over thedecades, right, um, but back
(02:58):
before there was all of thestuff around it, right, the
surrounding equipment with pumpsand um bottles and efficient
bottles anyway, and, um, alllike nipple shields, haukas,
we've got all this stuff bottlewarmers, bottle sanitizers, um
schedules and apps, like peoplejust kind of fed their baby
whenever, whenever the babyshowed signs of hunger.
(03:19):
So that's one method, right,that's, um, a very, entirely
fine method to look at in mostcases, like, just be intuitive
about it with you and your baby.
You do have to spend a lot oftime with that baby to read the
baby's cues, and I think thatpeople in other parts of our
society and history andcertainly still other parts
across the world, that baby isconstantly with a caregiver,
(03:43):
generally the mother, so theycan do very intuitive feeding
and they're not scheduled.
However, so many times in ourculture and society we are
pretty prescriptive about umfeeding things.
So we're gonna talk aboutbreastfeeding and um, just one
little component about it andthat's the timing of a feed and
not as far.
(04:03):
Not we'll talk about laterabout how frequently, but I want
to talk about um, and weprobably actually already have
in an episode, but I want totalk about the duration of a
feed.
Um, so in the beginning, withbreastfeeding, for someone who's
setting out to breastfeed, weneed that milk to come in right
and that milk production isbased on breast stimulation.
(04:24):
Breast stimulation can be donewith a baby skin to skin.
That's one method and it's apretty incredible one.
It's pretty effective actually.
So skin to skin, like babydoesn't have clothes on, maybe a
diaper, for sure Mom doesn't.
The baby and the breasts aretotally in contact.
A lot of cool communicationgoes on there between mom and
baby to help milk production andto help baby be able to
(04:45):
breastfeed easily and well.
Then we also have howfrequently we're feeding, so
early days that tiny littletummy we're going to be feeding
every two to three hours.
And then the timing, like howlong to feed people.
When I work in the hospital youknow we're with brand new
babies in the hospital.
They're hours to a day or twoold.
The milk's probably not in yet.
(05:06):
That usually happens on daythree and a lot of times people
will do which is totally fine,equal on both sides, right,
we're just getting colostrum,low volume of colostrum, it's
all the baby needs, which isgreat.
So maybe we do 15 or 20 or 30minutes on one side and on the
other side.
Fine, it's equal, equal.
That's great to bring the milkin.
However, a lot of babies, afterthat milk comes in um will shift
(05:30):
, even like on their own.
They'll kind of work into thislittle pattern of what I call
dinner dessert.
So they might start on one sideum of feeding and after that
milk is in, I encourage you tojust let that baby go as long as
they will on that first side,till they come off till they
fall asleep.
In the beginning that might be10, 15, 20, 30, 35, even 40
(05:54):
minutes.
We hope not if 40 is kind oflong for just one side, but it
might.
You know, the time varies forsure.
But let's say an average of 20,25 minutes on that first side.
And, yes, take them to thesecond side, which I can almost
guarantee will be much shorterthan the first side.
So we might have a total of 30minutes for this feed.
(06:16):
But the first side was 23 ofthe minutes and the second side
was seven of the minutes.
So what's good about this, thedinner dessert method, is that
there's always milk in thebreasts.
It might be, you know,drizzling, kind of just dripping
.
It might be gushing, dependingon how long since the baby's
eaten, but there will always bemilk in the breast.
(06:38):
So when that baby starts a feedso they haven't eaten for two
or three hours, they're readyfor some food, right?
They're they want, they want toeat, they're hungry, and that
the the milk that is in thebreast.
It's kind of like the soup of aseven course meal.
So if we just did 10 minutes,10 minutes that baby's going to
(06:58):
get a whole lot of soup.
Now, I love soup, but, um,maybe you want a little bit more
substance to your meal, so thismight be like I don't know,
really kind of weak soup, abroth or something right.
Um, the milk that gets made inthe breast as the baby starts to
suck comes a little bit laterin the feed.
So we have what's called aletdown.
Probably you're familiar withthat term.
(07:19):
I had a client one time the dad, english was not his first
language and I was doing somepostpartum lactation visits with
them and we were talking aboutthe letdown and it was the
cutest thing.
The dad.
He had this little shocked lookon his face, a little bit sad.
He's like, oh, we're lettingthe baby down.
I said, oh, no, no, no, notlike that it's.
It sounds literally yeah, letdown sounds like that.
(07:41):
But let down of milk isdifferent.
It's just as a gush of milk andthe breast will create gushes
of milk or let downs, sometimesseveral times during a feed.
So the baby, the first let down, generally happens within 60
seconds or so.
Sometimes it's fast, sometimesI work with babies I'm like we
got to let down in 10 seconds.
(08:01):
A lot of times you will hearthat let down.
You'll hear the baby gulping,trying to.
I call it milk managing.
They're just managing the milkthat's suddenly flowing.
So that first let down might bethat fore milk, that's the milk
that just kind of sits in theducts.
It's hanging out in the breastwaiting to be eaten back in the
other, the further back ducts ofthe breast, as the baby starts
(08:22):
to suckle and do breaststimulation this can happen with
pumping as well.
Then we have what I call newmilk being made.
This is new milk that hashigher fat content, higher
protein content.
The, the, the protein, thecontent of lactose, which is the
carb, the protein and the fatchanges throughout one feed.
(08:42):
It also changes throughout thetime of breastfeeding, whether
that's two months, four months,six months, 12 months, whatever.
That content of the milkchanges quite a lot, but it will
change in one feed.
So we do want that high fat,high protein content milk to be
getting into the baby.
So let the baby have a fulldinner.
On that first side it might be23 of 30 minutes.
(09:04):
You may sense another letdown afew minutes later and then
another one.
They generally will get alittle bit smaller as they go,
but that's where we have reallygreat milk coming in.
So baby gets super sleepy.
Or we've talked about how tokeep a baby awake If you want to
check out our episode on that.
Keep a sleepy baby awake duringa feed.
(09:25):
Or they just come off after awhile and they're usually pretty
satiated.
So after that first come off ofthe dinner side, you want to do
some things, perhaps to rouseyour baby.
Great time for a diaper change,a little bit of burping or
being upright, moving the babyaround, let that digestive
system kind of work itself intowith some movement and then go
to the next side and, almostguaranteed, this side will be
(09:48):
much shorter.
This will be your dessert side.
So again, that milk in thebreast is the four milk.
It doesn't have the highnutrient content of the hind
milk, but that's okay.
The baby just got dinner somaybe baby might have dessert on
the second side.
So maybe we had 23 minutesfirst side, seven minutes second
side.
Very normal.
We don't have to equaleverything.
And also some feeds are goingto be short, some are going to
(10:09):
be long, depending on the milksupply during the day, which
also fluctuates during the day.
We usually have highest supplyin the AM hours and it starts
dwindling, and we have lowestsupply in the PM hours.
So it's kind of a little rhythmthat the milk production
follows as well.
Um, sometimes babies just want alittle meal.
They just, you know, feel likea snack.
Sometimes I want a snack.
(10:30):
I don't want a full meal, Ijust want a little bit.
So, so kind of consider thatdinner dessert method to be very
normal and feedings in thebeginning are going to be kind
of long.
We got 20, 30, 40 minutes forthe entire thing.
Sometimes it's longer if we'readding in diaper changes or
sleepy babies, but that's supernormal in the beginning and over
(10:50):
time like the first week, twoweeks, three weeks those feeding
times are going to go down.
But the cool thing is the intakevolumes go up.
You can still do dinner dessertmethod, and maybe we do.
If we have a 12 minute feed, wedo eight minutes on the first
side, four minutes on the secondside.
So generally speaking, thatvolume intake time goes way down
(11:13):
over the weeks of breastfeeding.
I do get a lot of calls severalweeks in where people are very
nervous that their baby's onlyeating for seven minutes because
it used to be 30.
And that's a cool thing.
Like you know, as things workout it gets more efficient.
So kudos to you, good work.
So dinner dessert method kindof expect that from babies are
kind of going to organicallyjust work to that.
(11:35):
It's very normal in thebeginning before the milk comes
in first three or four daysequal is fine.
We're just we're working onbreast stimulation there, but
afterwards expect a littledinner dessertness going on.
Hopefully that's helpful foryou as you anticipate feeding a
baby or in the midst of feedinga baby.
That can be kind of a fuzzytime as we're, as you know, kind
(11:57):
of in a blur of things.
I've been helping some moms oftwins lately.
Super, it's all kind of a blurwhen they're it's like a
full-time job feeding,breastfeeding twins.
But you know what All of themthe ones I'm working with right
now are doing?
Amazing.
It's hard but they're doing it.
They have plenty of milk.
Babies are latching or learningto latch.
We have got some of them in theNICU and they're making it.
They're doing it.
(12:18):
It's impressive every time.
Hopefully that helps you alittle bit.
Dinner dessert for your babyvery common, and good luck in
your breastfeeding journey.
Please reach out to someone ifyou need support or help.
There's a lot of lactation helpto be had in the community.
So reach out and put out somefeelers and see where you can
(12:38):
get some help, because there ishelp to be had.
Best to you on your journey andplease, today, reach out and
make a human connection, dosomething kind for someone else.
You will not regret it.
I will talk to you next time.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula
podcast with Angie Rosier,hosted by Birth Learning.
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.
Thank you.
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice, helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hello and welcome to the Ordinary Doula podcast.
I'm so glad you're here today,wherever you are, whenever you
are listening, welcome, welcometo our little podcast.
We try to provide informationabout all kinds of topics
surrounding birth, pregnancy,labor, um, postpartum, lactation
(01:08):
all that cute little package oflife.
Some people will do this oncein their life and it's a big
deal.
Some people do this severaltimes in their life and it's a
big deal.
This is an event that takesyour attention right, like being
pregnant, having a baby, um,that's something.
That's not an experience thatjust slides right by.
It kind of gets our attention.
So people do give a lot offocus and we hope to be a space
(01:30):
and a place that can providesome valuable information and
focus during this time.
Hopefully you find somethinguseful here and or skills you
could take into the rest of yourlife and find.
The empowerment is my favoritepiece of this.
But the joy, the empowerment,the knowledge, the information
that can follow into pregnancy,birth, postpartum and
(01:52):
breastfeeding.
So today our topic is going tobe kind of breastfeeding
oriented for sure.
So I'm going to talk about thetiming of breastfeeding.
There's a lot of scripted waysto feed a baby.
There's schedules.
We don't want to go too longbetween feeds or you don't want
(02:14):
to be feeding too close togetherand the amount of time that we
feed.
It seems like a whole lot ofrecipe type stuff that we're
doing, like you have to do it,like this Very formulaic, and
that that might be the case.
Yes, there's some scriptedthings you want to do and I like
(02:37):
to.
I always like to think aboutback, like what did they used to
do before?
We had this knowledge, thisinformation?
How were we different when wedid that?
And I think back before, whenyou know when breastfeeding was
and I've studied the history ofbreastfeeding.
I think it's fascinating.
I actually did a thesis on itabout 25 years ago, um, and it's
shifted so much over thedecades, right, um, but back
(02:58):
before there was all of thestuff around it, right, the
surrounding equipment with pumpsand um bottles and efficient
bottles anyway, and, um, alllike nipple shields, haukas,
we've got all this stuff bottlewarmers, bottle sanitizers, um
schedules and apps, like peoplejust kind of fed their baby
whenever, whenever the babyshowed signs of hunger.
(03:19):
So that's one method, right,that's, um, a very, entirely
fine method to look at in mostcases, like, just be intuitive
about it with you and your baby.
You do have to spend a lot oftime with that baby to read the
baby's cues, and I think thatpeople in other parts of our
society and history andcertainly still other parts
across the world, that baby isconstantly with a caregiver,
(03:43):
generally the mother, so theycan do very intuitive feeding
and they're not scheduled.
However, so many times in ourculture and society we are
pretty prescriptive about umfeeding things.
So we're gonna talk aboutbreastfeeding and um, just one
little component about it andthat's the timing of a feed and
not as far.
(04:03):
Not we'll talk about laterabout how frequently, but I want
to talk about um, and weprobably actually already have
in an episode, but I want totalk about the duration of a
feed.
Um, so in the beginning, withbreastfeeding, for someone who's
setting out to breastfeed, weneed that milk to come in right
and that milk production isbased on breast stimulation.
(04:24):
Breast stimulation can be donewith a baby skin to skin.
That's one method and it's apretty incredible one.
It's pretty effective actually.
So skin to skin, like babydoesn't have clothes on, maybe a
diaper, for sure Mom doesn't.
The baby and the breasts aretotally in contact.
A lot of cool communicationgoes on there between mom and
baby to help milk production andto help baby be able to
(04:45):
breastfeed easily and well.
Then we also have howfrequently we're feeding, so
early days that tiny littletummy we're going to be feeding
every two to three hours.
And then the timing, like howlong to feed people.
When I work in the hospital youknow we're with brand new
babies in the hospital.
They're hours to a day or twoold.
The milk's probably not in yet.
(05:06):
That usually happens on daythree and a lot of times people
will do which is totally fine,equal on both sides, right,
we're just getting colostrum,low volume of colostrum, it's
all the baby needs, which isgreat.
So maybe we do 15 or 20 or 30minutes on one side and on the
other side.
Fine, it's equal, equal.
That's great to bring the milkin.
However, a lot of babies, afterthat milk comes in um will shift
(05:30):
, even like on their own.
They'll kind of work into thislittle pattern of what I call
dinner dessert.
So they might start on one sideum of feeding and after that
milk is in, I encourage you tojust let that baby go as long as
they will on that first side,till they come off till they
fall asleep.
In the beginning that might be10, 15, 20, 30, 35, even 40
(05:54):
minutes.
We hope not if 40 is kind oflong for just one side, but it
might.
You know, the time varies forsure.
But let's say an average of 20,25 minutes on that first side.
And, yes, take them to thesecond side, which I can almost
guarantee will be much shorterthan the first side.
So we might have a total of 30minutes for this feed.
(06:16):
But the first side was 23 ofthe minutes and the second side
was seven of the minutes.
So what's good about this, thedinner dessert method, is that
there's always milk in thebreasts.
It might be, you know,drizzling, kind of just dripping
.
It might be gushing, dependingon how long since the baby's
eaten, but there will always bemilk in the breast.
(06:38):
So when that baby starts a feedso they haven't eaten for two
or three hours, they're readyfor some food, right?
They're they want, they want toeat, they're hungry, and that
the the milk that is in thebreast.
It's kind of like the soup of aseven course meal.
So if we just did 10 minutes,10 minutes that baby's going to
(06:58):
get a whole lot of soup.
Now, I love soup, but, um,maybe you want a little bit more
substance to your meal, so thismight be like I don't know,
really kind of weak soup, abroth or something right.
Um, the milk that gets made inthe breast as the baby starts to
suck comes a little bit laterin the feed.
So we have what's called aletdown.
Probably you're familiar withthat term.
(07:19):
I had a client one time the dad, english was not his first
language and I was doing somepostpartum lactation visits with
them and we were talking aboutthe letdown and it was the
cutest thing.
The dad.
He had this little shocked lookon his face, a little bit sad.
He's like, oh, we're lettingthe baby down.
I said, oh, no, no, no, notlike that it's.
It sounds literally yeah, letdown sounds like that.
(07:41):
But let down of milk isdifferent.
It's just as a gush of milk andthe breast will create gushes
of milk or let downs, sometimesseveral times during a feed.
So the baby, the first let down, generally happens within 60
seconds or so.
Sometimes it's fast, sometimesI work with babies I'm like we
got to let down in 10 seconds.
(08:01):
A lot of times you will hearthat let down.
You'll hear the baby gulping,trying to.
I call it milk managing.
They're just managing the milkthat's suddenly flowing.
So that first let down might bethat fore milk, that's the milk
that just kind of sits in theducts.
It's hanging out in the breastwaiting to be eaten back in the
other, the further back ducts ofthe breast, as the baby starts
(08:22):
to suckle and do breaststimulation this can happen with
pumping as well.
Then we have what I call newmilk being made.
This is new milk that hashigher fat content, higher
protein content.
The, the, the protein, thecontent of lactose, which is the
carb, the protein and the fatchanges throughout one feed.
(08:42):
It also changes throughout thetime of breastfeeding, whether
that's two months, four months,six months, 12 months, whatever.
That content of the milkchanges quite a lot, but it will
change in one feed.
So we do want that high fat,high protein content milk to be
getting into the baby.
So let the baby have a fulldinner.
On that first side it might be23 of 30 minutes.
(09:04):
You may sense another letdown afew minutes later and then
another one.
They generally will get alittle bit smaller as they go,
but that's where we have reallygreat milk coming in.
So baby gets super sleepy.
Or we've talked about how tokeep a baby awake If you want to
check out our episode on that.
Keep a sleepy baby awake duringa feed.
(09:25):
Or they just come off after awhile and they're usually pretty
satiated.
So after that first come off ofthe dinner side, you want to do
some things, perhaps to rouseyour baby.
Great time for a diaper change,a little bit of burping or
being upright, moving the babyaround, let that digestive
system kind of work itself intowith some movement and then go
to the next side and, almostguaranteed, this side will be
(09:48):
much shorter.
This will be your dessert side.
So again, that milk in thebreast is the four milk.
It doesn't have the highnutrient content of the hind
milk, but that's okay.
The baby just got dinner somaybe baby might have dessert on
the second side.
So maybe we had 23 minutesfirst side, seven minutes second
side.
Very normal.
We don't have to equaleverything.
And also some feeds are goingto be short, some are going to
(10:09):
be long, depending on the milksupply during the day, which
also fluctuates during the day.
We usually have highest supplyin the AM hours and it starts
dwindling, and we have lowestsupply in the PM hours.
So it's kind of a little rhythmthat the milk production
follows as well.
Um, sometimes babies just want alittle meal.
They just, you know, feel likea snack.
Sometimes I want a snack.
(10:30):
I don't want a full meal, Ijust want a little bit.
So, so kind of consider thatdinner dessert method to be very
normal and feedings in thebeginning are going to be kind
of long.
We got 20, 30, 40 minutes forthe entire thing.
Sometimes it's longer if we'readding in diaper changes or
sleepy babies, but that's supernormal in the beginning and over
(10:50):
time like the first week, twoweeks, three weeks those feeding
times are going to go down.
But the cool thing is the intakevolumes go up.
You can still do dinner dessertmethod, and maybe we do.
If we have a 12 minute feed, wedo eight minutes on the first
side, four minutes on the secondside.
So generally speaking, thatvolume intake time goes way down
(11:13):
over the weeks of breastfeeding.
I do get a lot of calls severalweeks in where people are very
nervous that their baby's onlyeating for seven minutes because
it used to be 30.
And that's a cool thing.
Like you know, as things workout it gets more efficient.
So kudos to you, good work.
So dinner dessert method kindof expect that from babies are
kind of going to organicallyjust work to that.
(11:35):
It's very normal in thebeginning before the milk comes
in first three or four daysequal is fine.
We're just we're working onbreast stimulation there, but
afterwards expect a littledinner dessertness going on.
Hopefully that's helpful foryou as you anticipate feeding a
baby or in the midst of feedinga baby.
That can be kind of a fuzzytime as we're, as you know, kind
(11:57):
of in a blur of things.
I've been helping some moms oftwins lately.
Super, it's all kind of a blurwhen they're it's like a
full-time job feeding,breastfeeding twins.
But you know what All of themthe ones I'm working with right
now are doing?
Amazing.
It's hard but they're doing it.
They have plenty of milk.
Babies are latching or learningto latch.
We have got some of them in theNICU and they're making it.
They're doing it.
(12:18):
It's impressive every time.
Hopefully that helps you alittle bit.
Dinner dessert for your babyvery common, and good luck in
your breastfeeding journey.
Please reach out to someone ifyou need support or help.
There's a lot of lactation helpto be had in the community.
So reach out and put out somefeelers and see where you can
(12:38):
get some help, because there ishelp to be had.
Best to you on your journey andplease, today, reach out and
make a human connection, dosomething kind for someone else.
You will not regret it.
I will talk to you next time.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula
podcast with Angie Rosier,hosted by Birth Learning.
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.
Thank you.
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The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!