← All three stages 02 · Breastfeeding

While you're feeding.

Three things for the feeding months. One for the fortnight when it hurts, one for the days your breasts are hard and aching, and one for the evening you'd like a glass of wine and a straight answer about it.

What this stage is actually like

Feeding is often described as natural, which people hear as easy. For a lot of women the first two weeks are the hardest part of the whole year, cracked skin, a let-down that stings, breasts that go hard and hot around day three when the milk properly comes in.

Most of that settles. Nipple soreness that's down to positioning usually improves once the latch is sorted, and engorgement passes within a few days as supply and demand find each other. Butter and warmth and cold make those days more bearable; they don't fix a latch.

If feeding hurts every time, or a nipple is cracked and bleeding, or you can feel a hard hot lump with a fever alongside it, that's worth a lactation consultant or a doctor, not another product. Mastitis in particular needs seeing to.

!

A test strip is a screening aid

A milk alcohol strip gives you a reading at one moment, from one sample. It is not medical clearance and it cannot tell you your baby is safe. Read the full limits on the product page before you rely on it.