Newborn Lip Blisters: What They Mean and When to Get Feeding Support
Have you ever Googled, “What are newborn lip blisters?” Lip blisters in newborns are very common. Often, they’re just a sign of an eager little nurser learning how to latch and feed. Your baby’s lips are simply adjusting to the suction and friction that come with nursing or bottle-feeding. Sometimes, a small blister shows up…
The Nursing Bra Guide for Modern Moms
We’re thrilled to welcome Katie Brooker from Cake Maternity to the blog today! She’s offering practical advice and expert guidance on what to look for in a great nursing bra. Welcoming a new baby changes everything, including your bra drawer. Suddenly, the stylish, underwired bras you once wore feel like a distant memory, replaced by a new set…
Why Is My Newborn So Gassy? 10 Expert Doula Tips
You might be wondering why your baby is struggling with gas. Digesting food is a new skill for your baby’s body to learn. Being immature and new, your baby’s digestive system needs time to adjust Whether they are eating from the breast or bottle, their little tummies are still sorting out this new “eating arrangement.”…
Feeling Emotional About Weaning? 3 Tips to Start Your Breastfeeding Weaning Plan
You’ve worked long and hard to breastfeed your baby. For some, breastfeeding comes easy, while for others, not so much. After you manage to connect all the dots, breastfeeding still takes a large portion of your day. It takes time and energy to connect and learn your baby’s rhythm. As your baby grows and no…
Hunger Cues | How To Tell Your Baby is Hungry
Why is it important to know your baby’s hunger cues? Understanding your baby’s signals helps you know when and how often to feed her. Newborn babies have tiny tummies and need to eat often. An average of 8 – 12 feedings in a 24 hour period is expected and necessary. A couple of those feedings…
Should I Take a Breastfeeding Class?
I talk to a lot of expecting mothers and hear many of them say they hope to be successful at breastfeeding, but they aren’t sure it will work out. These hopes are mixed in with stories they’ve heard from friends and families. At least 80% of women initiate breastfeeding. That is a high percentage who…
The Golden Hour After Birth
The Golden Hour (or hours) refers to the immediate hour after you have given birth to your baby and the connection that takes place during this time. This quality time between you and your baby will have lasting effects on your relationship and how your baby adapts to their new environment. Your beautiful baby arrives…
Black Breastfeeding Week, An Interview with Deidra Washington, IBCLC
For Black Breastfeeding Week, we are highlighting one of our favorite lactation counselors, Deidra Washington. You can learn more about her services and find her here: https://loveontopbirth.com. 1. Tell us about your personal breastfeeding story. My breastfeeding journey started on January 2, 2018 late at night, around 10:00 pm. I gave birth at the Labor of…
Breastfeeding and Birth Control
We believe it’s just as important to understand your options and feel empowered in your decisions about birth control as it is for giving birth. In this post we share insight into breastfeeding as a form of birth control, called the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM). Is breastfeeding my baby an effective form of birth control?…
Breastfeeding Support Options
Just like there is no such thing as “one size fits all” bras, breastfeeding help is no different. The best person that you can reach out to for breastfeeding support is a breastfeeding professional. Makes sense, right? In this article we will discuss the different types of breastfeeding support options that are available. As a…
Help, My Baby is Teething!
Out of nowhere, your five month-old baby is fussy, irritated, chewing on everything (maybe your nipple or her bottle nipple), drooling a lot, has a slightly elevated body temperature and not sleeping well. Sound familiar? She’s probably teething! (Side note here: lots of babies start drooling around three months old, this doesn’t necessarily mean she’s…
Breast Milk Storage Guidelines and Formula Storage Guidelines
Did you know the American Academy of Pediatrics recently updated its guidelines for storage of breast milk? You can count on your team of postpartum doulas and lactation counselors here at Buddha Belly to always keep you up to date with the latest breast milk and formula storage guidelines. We love that the guidance starts…
Infant Feeding Schedule ~ How Often My Baby Needs to Eat & How Much
If you are the parent of a newborn, you’ve likely heard this question from the pediatrician or others: how many times a day is your baby feeding? I remember when I had my first baby, I answered, “A million?” It certainly felt like my newborn didn’t do anything other than eat, sleep and fill her…
Helping Baby Accept a Bottle
It’s a bit of a terrifying scenario for breastfeeding parents who are returning to paid work: your baby refuses to feed from a bottle. Everyone panics. Your caregiver is nervous about how they will take care of your baby while you’re away. You are scared about your baby getting the nutrition and hydration that she…
Tongue Ties and Breastfeeding
Many families seek out the help of a lactation professional like me because they are struggling with breastfeeding. As a certified lactation counselor, one issue that I see frequently affecting breastfeeding is tongue ties. I’ve sent dozens of families for assessment and evaluation of suspected tethered oral tissue (TOTs.) Only a handful of times has…
What Can I Eat When Breastfeeding?
What foods can I eat when breastfeeding? The short answer is: anything that sounds good! Shortest. Blog. Ever. Oh, you’re still reading? Okay! When it comes to a mother’s diet during breastfeeding, we hear the craziest stories from our clients about foods they were told to avoid. (And as a reminder, we are not licensed…
How Long Should My Baby Nurse?
During the first few weeks of breastfeeding, you may wonder: how long should my baby nurse? How long should my baby nurse on each side? Does my baby need to nurse on each side, every time? These are very common questions! How long should my baby nurse? Heads up that the info in next section…
Healing Damaged Nipples
Breastfeeding should never hurt. Breastfeeding should never hurt, but that doesn’t mean it actually never does. How can you heal damaged, cracked and bleeding nipples? Fix That Latch! First, you’ll need to take corrective measures to stop the damage from reoccurring. This almost always means encouraging your baby to latch more deeply. In a shallow…
A Home Visit from a Lactation Counselor
When I had my first baby in North Carolina, we had significant breastfeeding challenges right away. Each time the frustration (and tears) became more than I could bear, I’d schlep my sore postpartum body back to the birth center to visit with the IBCLC (international board-certified lactation consultant) for help. In fact, I clearly remember…
Exclusive Pumping 101
Breastfeeding: the most natural thing on the planet, according to many loud opinions on the internet. Right? What happens when breastfeeding proves to be a challenge? Some families turn to exclusive pumping as a means to feed their babies. Can we tell you a little secret? It’s still breastfeeding. You are providing your baby with…
Infant Reflux: Why Does My Baby Spit Up So Much?
Infant Reflux seems to be one of the most diagnosed issues we see among our clients today. The rise in diagnosis could be contributed to many factors, one of which is the internet. Hop onto any forum and ask about your baby crying and you’re likely to hear “it’s probably Reflux!” from at least a…
When Should I Start Pumping Breastmilk?
Unless you need to be separated from your baby early on or circumstances require you to start pumping immediately (such as having a preemie in the NICU), it is recommended to wait about 4-6 weeks before you begin pumping. During these first few weeks your body is acclimating to the needs of your baby. When…
Breastfeeding Support in Tampa Bay
Let’s just start this conversation by saying if you don’t want to breastfeed, that is OKAY. It is your body and you get to make the choice about everything that happens to it. If you want to breastfeed and then change your mind, that is OKAY too. You don’t need to defend that choice to…
Breastmilk: Is My Baby Getting Enough?
Is my baby getting enough breastmilk? This is the number one question we get from new parents. This is a totally normal question to have – after all, most of us have seen bottle-feeding and it is very easy to measure baby’s intake from a bottle! Your newborn should be drinking breastmilk at the breast…
An Oversupply of Breastmilk?
Breastmilk oversupply? Before it happened to me, I really didn’t realize it could be a problem. How could any mother have an oversupply of breastmilk and how could that possibly be a problem? I’d heard about mothers who struggled to keep their milk supply abundant enough for their baby, but oversupply? It sounded like a…
When Is the “Right” Time to Wean?
In America, most babies (approximately 77%) wean – that is, stop breastfeeding – by one year of age, according to the CDC. However, that doesn’t mean YOUR baby will or has to follow this same timeline. The book Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives surmised that the human biological age for weaning from breastfeeding is between two and…
What’s a Lip/Tongue Tie? A Dentist’s Personal Story
Last week we visited with Dr. Maggie Davis, a pediatric dentist in Palm Harbor. She has a fantastic practice tailored to the needs of families with infants and small children all the way through adolescence. We are happy to have her as a guest blogger providing this helpful information. – Christie & Amy The topic…
Understanding Plugged Ducts: Causes, Symptoms & Relief (updated 2025)
Who knew there was so much to learn about breastfeeding?! Breastfeeding mothers experience a variety of challenges, and it’s so helpful to talk about them openly. Doing so can make all the difference in having a successful breastfeeding experience — and in preventing more serious complications from developing. What Is a Plugged Duct? Sometimes, milk…
My Newborn Wouldn’t Latch
Nursing, although natural, can be nothing short of a beautiful struggle. It is a delicate dance between mother and baby at first breath earthside, and quite frankly an acrobatic adventure as time moves forward. It moves through its phases but you’ll always remember those eyes staring up at you, the mumbling as they feed, dropping…
Breastfeeding Advice from a Tampa Bay IBCLC
First, congratulations on choosing to learn more about breastfeeding! Getting educated on breastfeeding will help you get off to a great start. Read books, talk to friends and professionals and ask questions; you are going to do great at this! You probably already know that breastfeeding is the biological norm. This is how we have…
How Do I Get A Breast Pump From Insurance? [updated in 2021]
Expecting parents sometimes ask us how they can get a breast pump from their health insurance company. Whether you’re planning to return to work or not, a breast pump is handy to have available for those times when you can’t nurse your baby at your breast. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, these should be…
Doula Support Positively Affects Breastfeeding
Improved breastfeeding outcomes are not merely opinion. Research has concluded what many mothers and doulas know from personal experience. Having a doula not only improves the birth experience, it makes the transition to a new life with baby smoother. Plainly stated doula support has a positive affect on breastfeeding! One study was conducted with 724 first time mothers.…
Breastfeeding, Getting a Good Start with Skin-to-Skin
Last week myself and another postpartum doula on our team, spent five long days learning about lactation at The Lactation Counselor Training Course through The Healthy Children Project. It was eye-opening in so many ways even after having breastfed my own children for a combined total of more than 5 ½ years. So, I wanted to share…
Letting Go, When Breastfeeding Comes to an End
When your breastfeeding relationship is coming to an end it can be a time of mixed emotions. You are not alone. While I was lying with my son tonight helping him go back to sleep (without offering the breast) I felt proud of both of us and yet a little bit sad. He is 2…