The Breastfeeding Adventures of an Experienced Mom
Published Date:September 17, 2025
By Ali Weatherford and Breastfeeding Interview with Lauren Reyes
We couldn’t finish sharing our co-owner/founder Lauren Reyes’ childbearing experience with her sixth baby without getting into breastfeeding! Some people might assume that after breastfeeding five babies, there would be no more surprises, but there always are.
Experience Does Not Equal Perfection
Most parents who have breastfed more than one child will tell you that their experience with each was very different. We often have parents coming in to our outpatient clinics with second, third or fourth, etc. babies who are having trouble with breastfeeding. Every baby is different, and the baby is half of the equation. We encourage EVERY parent to get help with breastfeeding if it’s hard, or if they suspect that something is wrong. There is almost always a solution and comfort that visiting with an IBCLC can provide.
Breastfeeding in the Early Days
If you watch the recorded interview with Lauren, you’ll hear her talk about her milk “coming in”. She says it happened when her baby was about three days old. What does this mean? You might be wondering if there wasn’t any milk in there for the first three days?! No need to worry. There was plenty of colostrum available to feed her baby. Colostrum is the milk your body produces during pregnancy and in the first few days after birth. There are very small amounts of this substance, but that is just enough to fill the baby’s marble-sized belly, and it’s very high in protein. It’s also the perfect formulation to address the most important things that are going on in the first few days of life. It’s the right formula to help colonize a baby’s gut microbiome, so they can start digesting food efficiently and fight off infection. It’s just right for helping the baby develop their immune system. And it’s a great laxative for helping your baby clear meconium and keep their bilirubin levels normal to avoid jaundice. After a few days, your baby’s belly grows, and the milk changes. It will be less dense, there will be a lot more of it, and the formulation will change to provide higher levels of carbohydrates, which means your baby can start to feel fuller for longer.
Weight loss can also be a big issue in the first few days. All babies will lose weight. Some babies will lose more, especially if the birth parent received a lot of intravenous fluids during labor and birth. The babies also take in some of this fluid and might be retaining a lot of excess water when born. This makes them heavier and appear to lose more weight. If this is something you’re concerned about, you might ask about waiting until the baby urinates a few times before getting their birth weight, or just keep this information in the back of your mind so you don’t worry too much if your baby loses more weight than you expect. The threshold for a “normal” amount of weight loss is about 10% of their birth weight. If the baby loses more than that, interventions are usually offered. This might mean pumping and giving extra bottle feeds, or using donor milk or formula to supplement breastfeeding.
Lauren talks about her baby’s weight loss being 9.4%. She did not have any IV fluids, so this was a little surprising and worrying to her. Because of her professional experience, she understood that she could watch for some other signs that her baby was doing OK. She wasn’t experiencing any pain with breastfeeding, he seemed content, and he was making PLENTY of dirty and wet diapers, so she felt comforted and decided to continue to breastfeed on demand as she had been. He did stop losing weight and began to gain weight well. If you have concerns about weight loss, your pediatrician or lactation consultant can help you look for signs that your baby is doing OK.
Understanding the Gastrocolic Reflex in Newborns
One of the issues that Lauren suspected could have been the cause of her baby’s more than average weight loss was the fact that he had 11 dirty diapers on his first day of life! That’s a lot. An average number of first day dirty diapers is 1-2. More is OK though, and might be explained by this baby’s very active gastrocolic reflex.
The gastrocolic reflex is actually normal activity for the human gut. It’s what causes the digestive system to become active when food is introduced. In a newborn with such a tiny and immature digestive system, this often means that they poop WHILE they’re eating or very soon after. If the baby is eating very often, they might have a lot of bowel movements. Lauren’s baby cleared the meconium very quickly with all of those dirty diapers, so it might not be so surprising that he would lose a significant amount of weight. Something that Lauren also had not dealt with before was his struggle to stool later! After a few weeks, his gastrocolic reflex wasn’t responding so strongly, which is normal as babies develop, and he was having to learn to pass stool on his own. This meant he was grunting a lot. At first, she couldn’t figure out what was going on, and they spent some sleepless nights trying to help him with his apparent discomfort, but he quickly got the hang of it and started having less noisy bowel movements.
How Oral Restrictions Affect Breastfeeding
Tongue-ties and other oral restrictions can sometimes be responsible for problems with weight gain and breastfeeding, but not always. An oral restriction is caused by shortened connective structures, also called frenulum, in the mouth. Sometimes it’s the little piece of skin under the tongue that connects it to the bottom of the mouth. Sometimes, it’s the little piece of skin that connects the upper or lower lip to the gum line. Some babies with significant restrictions can get really good at working around it and never need intervention for breastfeeding. Other babies with a milder restriction really struggle to get milk from the breast, don’t gain weight well, or cause a lot of nipple pain for the parent. When this happens, the milk supply can be affected.
Lauren’s baby has an oral restriction, but it hasn’t caused any problems with breastfeeding as shown by his weight gain, the fact that he’s making plenty of wet and dirty diapers, the lack of nipple pain, and his general happy and content attitude. In this case, Lauren has received a lot of training in identifying potential oral restrictions for breastfeeding, and has also decided to get a doctor to give an official diagnosis so that she has it in case there’s a need for intervention in the future. Just because a restriction doesn’t cause a problem for breastfeeding, doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t interfere with something else in the future. It’s so important to emphasize that not all oral restrictions cause problems with breastfeeding.
Be sure to do thorough assessments of the benefits and risks before deciding to do a revision. It’s a relatively simple procedure, but does cause some stress and discomfort for the baby, and can definitely create additional stress to the family related to diagnosis, cost, and follow-up care.
But Breastfeeding Does Get Easier
I would hate to end this article leaving anyone feeling like breastfeeding is just going to be difficult for everyone and with every baby. That is also not the whole truth. Some people never struggle with breastfeeding. They start knowing nothing, then the baby just latches on without any effort and it continues just like that. They feed the baby whenever it seems the baby is hungry, and they never encounter obstacles. On the other hand, there are people who battle to breastfeed all the time and with every baby and it doesn’t seem to get easier.
The large majority of us are somewhere in the middle. It might not be as easy as you thought at the beginning, but with some guidance from someone who knows a little or a lot about it, you get it figured out. Over the first few weeks, you might have to work out a few kinks. Eventually, sore nipples stop feeling sore, your baby latches on without any problem, you figure out how to breastfeed your baby in a lot of different positions, and your confidence grows. Soon, you can breastfeed anywhere, and almost literally breastfeed in your sleep.
As the baby grows, they need less time at the breast and you might even start to cherish the more rare moments you spend breastfeeding. It can be hard to picture that future when you’re in the first few weeks, but most people DO get there if they can hang on a little longer. You won’t always be breastfeeding around the clock or for as long. It will get easier. Just think of anything else you have had to learn. The first 20 times I sat down with yarn and knitting needles I had to look at my book and follow it step-by-step to remember exactly how to do it. I was slow and I made SO many mistakes! I’m still not great at knitting, but it keeps me calm on an airplane, so I still do it. But I don’t have to look at the book anymore, my hands just sort of do it without me having to think, and the piece looks a lot less lopsided.
References:
Baby’s First Days: Bowel Movements & Urination – HealthyChildren.org
The composition of human milk – PubMed
Human Milk Composition: Nutrients and Bioactive Factors – PMC
Anatomy, Colostrum – StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf
Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Position Statement on Ankyloglossia in Breastfeeding Dyads
