Read our community’s top tips for feeding your baby or toddler this season.

Baby’s first Christmas can be an exciting time – all those cute photo opportunities, seeing them entranced by twinkly lights and picking out some lovely presents. But it can also be a time when you run into some problems with feeding your baby. It’s good to be prepared, so here are some tips from local parents who have been there…

Some babies and toddlers can get easily overwhelmed at a seasonal party or event with lots of new people and noise. A breastfeed can be a great way to calm down and reconnect when everything has got too much.

Two mums from our community gave reminders that babies don’t yet know the calendar:

‘Baby doesn’t know it’s Christmas day – it’s OK to delay the festivities by a few days or weeks until you feel that breastfeeding is established.’

‘Don’t feel pressured to attend family gatherings or give in to pressure from people to parade your baby around at Christmas. If you want to stay at home and snuggle in your newborn bubble, you don’t need anyone’s permission to do so.’

For many of us, this time of year comes with invitations to parties with family, friends or colleagues.

Big family gatherings sometimes result in babies being passed round lots of people as everyone wants a cuddle with the newest addition. If feeding cues are missed, the baby can end up hungry, and the feeding parent feeling uncomfortably engorged. You can find tips for when engorgement is a problem in this article. Top tip from an experienced parent: ‘Consider using a sling to help keep the baby pass-the-parcel to a minimum. People are less likely to insist on having cuddles with a baby who is clearly snuggled in a sling sleeping.’

If you’re meeting up with people you haven’t seen for a while, you might like to find out in advance what people’s opinions may be on breastfeeding so as to choose your strategy beforehand (instead of it being a mood-ruiner on the day). Maybe you’d rather discreetly feed in another room, or maybe you want to prepare your arguments and data to rebuff someone who is bothered by breastfeeding in public, feeding responsively, feeding toddlers, or whatever you’re going through at the moment!

Despite the gorgeous photo we found to illustrate this article, we’ll leave you with this thought from one of our Peer Supporters…

‘You don’t have to have matching Christmas pjs and a special photo shoot to make lovely memories.’

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