Last Updated: March 2026
(Originally Published: September 2023)
You sit down to feed and realise you’re already tense before your baby even opens their mouth.
Your shoulders are lifted, your breath is shallow, and you are already waiting for that first moment of contact because you remember how it felt last time.
And somewhere underneath all of that is the question you haven’t quite said out loud yet.
Is this how it’s supposed to be?
The first few days: before the milk comes in
There is a moment, usually around day three or four, when you look down at your baby and think: something is wrong with me.
The milk hasn’t come in yet, or it has, and your breasts feel like they belong to someone else. Your nipples hurt in a way you weren’t warned about. Your baby is crying again, and you just fed them, and you’re sitting in the dark, wondering if you’re doing the most natural thing in the world completely wrong.
You’re not doing it wrong, and it still might feel far harder than you expected.
What your body makes first is colostrum. Thick, yellowish, produced in very small amounts. It can feel like nothing is happening. You squeeze, and almost nothing comes out. Your baby feeds for a long time, yet still seems unsettled.
It can feel like it isn’t enough, even though this is exactly how these first days are meant to work. A newborn’s stomach on day one is tiny, and colostrum is concentrated enough to meet it there.
In these early days, a lot of time is spent with your baby on your chest, skin against skin, sometimes feeding, sometimes just resting there. That closeness is doing more than it looks like. Hormones like prolactin help your body make milk, and oxytocin helps it flow. Skin-to-skin in these early days strengthens both.
Most babies lose a little weight in the first few days. It’s expected, and it’s monitored. You don’t need to hold your breath over every gram.
When the milk arrives
For most women, milk comes in between days 2 and 5. When it does, you’ll know.
Your breasts swell, sometimes dramatically. They can feel hard and hot and tight, like something has been overfilled. The word for this is engorgement. You might wake in the night drenched. You might feel a heaviness across your chest that makes it hard to lie down comfortably.
The word for this is engorgement, but nobody really explains how physical it is.
The sting when milk first lets down catches a lot of women off guard. That sharp, pins-and-needles feeling that spreads through the breast in the first minute of a feed. For some, it’s mild. For some, it makes you grip the chair and hold your breath until it passes.
It usually settles as your supply finds its rhythm, but in the beginning, it can feel intense, even when everything is working as it should.
The latch: what nobody tells you
You’ve probably been shown the latch. In a class, by a midwife, on a video late at night.
And still, when you’re sitting there with a real baby who is crying and turning their head away, everything you learned disappears.
You’re leaning forward without realising it. Your shoulders are up near your ears. One arm has gone numb. You’re holding your breath.
The baby latches, and you wince, and you don’t know if that means something is wrong or if this is just what hard feels like.
A good latch can still hurt in the early days. Skin that has never done this before is adjusting, and the first part of the feed is often the most intense.
That’s different from pain that runs all the way through, or nipples that come out creased or damaged afterwards. If it hurts from start to finish, it’s worth having someone watch a full feed. Not because you’re failing, but because small changes in position can shift everything.
Different holds work for different bodies and different recoveries. Cross-cradle, football hold, and side-lying each have their place. If one position is consistently painful, it is worth trying another before assuming the latch itself is the problem.
A guide to breastfeeding positions and finding one that works for you can help narrow it down.
An International Board Certified Lactation Consultant can also see what you can’t while you’re in it.
How often is often enough
A newborn feeding eight to twelve times in twenty-four hours is common, and sometimes it’s more than that.
It doesn’t always follow a pattern that makes sense. Feeds stack close together, then space out, then cluster again just when you thought you had a rhythm.
In the evenings, especially, it can feel relentless. Like your baby is never quite settled and keeps coming back to feed again and again.
This is often cluster feeding. It’s one of the most common experiences in the first weeks, and also one of the hardest. You can feel like you are the only source of comfort and also like you are not doing it well enough.
Both of those feelings can exist at the same time, and neither of them means feeding isn’t working.
Sometimes it helps to notice the smaller signals instead of trying to measure a single feed. Your baby’s hands softening. Their bodies relax for a moment. Your breasts feel a little less full afterwards.
And over the first days, nappies begin to build. Small at first. Then more frequent. By around day five, you are usually seeing several heavier wet nappies across the day. Not perfectly spaced. Not predictable. But there.
Some newborns also develop mild jaundice in the first week. It is common, and frequent feeding helps clear it. If your baby seems very sleepy, is difficult to wake for feeds, or looks increasingly yellow, it is worth getting checked sooner rather than later.
The small cues you start to notice
In the beginning, hunger does not always look like crying straight away. It can be smaller than that. A head turning from side to side. A hand moving toward the mouth. A restless sound that builds if it’s missed.
Learning to read your baby’s hunger and fullness cues early makes those first feeds feel a lot less like guesswork.
By the time your baby is crying, they are often already frustrated, and that can make feeding feel harder than it needs to be.
Those earlier moments can be easy to miss at first. And missing them does not mean you’ve done something wrong. It just means you’re still learning how your baby asks for what they need.
When your nipples are damaged
Cracked, bleeding, or extremely painful nipples are not something you need to push through quietly.
Understanding what’s normal when your nipples hurt in the early weeks (and what’s worth getting checked) can help you decide when to ask for support.
This is one of the most common reasons women stop earlier than they planned, not because breastfeeding didn’t work, but because something fixable wasn’t supported in time.
If your nipples are damaged, have someone check the latch before assuming it won’t improve. Small adjustments can change the experience completely.
If the latch looks fine and it still hurts, it’s worth asking about tongue tie. It’s more common than most people expect, and not always obvious.
A lactation consultant, GP, or paediatrician can help you work through what’s going on.
The things that make you wonder if something is wrong
Your baby is constantly feeding. Usually normal.
Your breast feels empty after a feed. That doesn’t mean it is. Milk works on supply and demand.
One side is producing more than the other. Very common.
You might also notice firm, tender areas in your breast as your milk comes in. These can sometimes be blocked ducts. They often ease with regular feeding and gentle movement, but if a firm area is accompanied by redness or fever, that needs attention sooner.
Milk leaking or spraying from the other breast. Normal, even if it feels chaotic.
Feeling a sudden wave of sadness or dread right as your milk lets down. This is real, it has a name, and it is not about how you feel about your baby.
Dysphoric milk ejection reflex, or D-MER, is neurological, not emotional. It is not about how you feel about feeding or your baby. If it is happening, it is worth mentioning to your GP or midwife, particularly if it feels distressing or is making you dread feeds.
Waking up in a puddle. Also normal.
For some mums, feeding in these early weeks includes top-ups or a mix of breast and bottle while things are still settling. That doesn’t mean anything has gone off track. It just means your path has a few more moving parts.
When to ask for help
Some moments need more than reassurance.
Ask for help if you have a red, hot, painful area on your breast, especially with fever or flu-like symptoms. This can be mastitis and needs treatment.
If your nipples are not improving after a few days, or your baby is not gaining weight as expected, or nappies are fewer than you’re seeing described, it’s worth getting support.
And if something feels wrong and you can’t explain why, that alone is enough reason to ask.
The Australian Breastfeeding Association helpline (1800 686 268) is available 24 hours a day. You can call in the middle of the night and speak to someone who understands what this feels like while you’re in it. Pregnancy, Birth and Baby (1800 882 436) is another place you can speak to someone trained to help you think it through.
What nobody says about the emotional part
Breastfeeding in the first weeks can feel like your body has been borrowed.
Like you are needed in a way that leaves no room for anything else. Like there is no version of you right now that isn’t attached to someone else’s hunger.
Some women feel connected to it straight away. Some feel overwhelmed, lonely, or quietly resentful before it becomes easier, if it becomes easier.
Neither experience says anything about the kind of mother you are.
If you are dreading every feed, or crying before your baby even latches, or feeling something heavier than exhaustion, tell someone. Your GP, your midwife, your child health nurse.
You are doing something demanding on very little sleep, in a body that is still recovering.
Australian guidelines recommend exclusive breastfeeding to around six months, with continued breastfeeding alongside solids after that. But you are in week one right now, and that is enough to focus on.
If you’re looking for answers to a specific question from these early weeks, our guide to getting started with breastfeeding has them gathered in one place.
You might still be sitting there wondering if all of this is normal. And most of the time, it is.
The pain in those first seconds. The engorgement. The constant feeding. The uncertainty about whether enough is getting through. The feeling that everyone else knows something you don’t.
This is new, and new things are hard before they become familiar. You are learning something that cannot be fully prepared for, with a body that is figuring it out alongside you, and a baby who has never done this either.
You are right at the beginning of something that takes time to find its shape.
That’s not a flaw in you. That’s just where you’re at.
And that’s ok.