Your Breastfeeding Questions Answered by a Midwife

Breastfeeding content online tends to fall into two camps: soft-focus photos of mums nursing in fields, or worst-case scare stories. Neither is much use at 3am when your nipple feels like it's been through a cheese grater and you're Googling "is this normal" with one hand.

I'm a midwife, a nurse, and a mum of three. I've sat on the end of more postnatal beds than I can count, answering the questions women are almost too embarrassed to ask. So here they are - no fluff, no scare tactics, just what I'd tell you if you were sitting in front of me.

In this post:

1. "It hurts when my baby latches. Is that just what breastfeeding feels like?"

No. This is the one I need you to hear: breastfeeding can feel intense, tugging, strange - but it should not be painful. Some tenderness in the couple of weeks or so, while your body adjusts, is normal. Pain that doesn't ease within the first 10–15 seconds of a feed, or pain that's there every single time, is your body telling you the latch needs adjusting. It is not something you push through. It's something you fix.

Start here: is your baby's chin buried into your breast, nose free, cheeks rounded (not sucked in)? If yes but it still hurts, don't just pull away — that drags on the nipple and makes it worse. Slide a clean pinky finger into the corner of your baby's mouth to break the suction gently, then reposition and try again. Get eyes on a feed from a midwife, Lactation Consultant or La Leche League Leader.

2. "How do I actually know my baby is getting milk, not just comfort sucking?"

You don't have to guess. Watch and listen. A baby who's transferring milk has a slow, deep jaw movement once their mouth fills with milk and you'll hear a soft "kuh" swallow sound every suck or two. Flutter sucking with no swallow, for the whole feed, could mean they've drifted into comfort sucking rather than active feeding.

Sucking and swallowing at the breast is your reassurance. And you've got three more signs that confirm it: output (wet and dirty nappies stacking up as expected for their age), steady weight gain, and a baby who comes off the breast settled rather than frantic. Any one of these alone doesn't tell the whole story — together, they do.

3. "My baby feeds constantly in the evening. Is my supply dropping off?"

Almost certainly not. Cluster feeding — usually late afternoon into the evening — is one of the most normal things about breastfeeding. Your baby isn't telling you your milk has dried up. They're regulating your supply upward and getting their nervous system through the hardest part of the day. It's relentless, it's temporary, and it means your body is doing exactly what it's meant to.

4. "Does what I eat actually change my milk supply?"

Supply is driven mainly by demand — feeding and removing milk regularly is what tells your body to keep making it. But nutrition sits underneath that whole system. You're running a 24/7 metabolic process on top of newborn sleep. Under-fuelling and dehydration are two of the fastest ways to feel your supply and your energy take a hit.

The two things I tell every mum:

Water first. Breastmilk is over 80% water. If you're not drinking enough, staying hydrated is the single easiest lever you can pull.
Protein at breakfast, every day. Whatever you eat in the newborn haze tends to be whatever's closest and fastest. A protein-rich start, even something you can eat one-handed [like a Lila Jasmine Lactation Bar] sets you up better than coffee and toast.

5. "What's a shallow latch, and how would I even know?"

A shallow latch is when your nipple isn't drawn far enough into your baby's mouth to reach the soft palate, so it's getting compressed against the hard palate and gums instead. Painful, and often the cause of that "why does this still hurt" feeling weeks in.

The quick check: look at your nipple straight after your baby comes off. It should be rounded, maybe slightly stretched — not flattened, creased, or lipstick-shaped. If it looks squashed, the latch needs work.

6. "I'm pumping and it hurts. Is that just what pumping feels like?"

No - this one's almost always a flange size issue. The flange is the funnel part of your pump that sits on your breast/nipple, and a size that's too small drags the areola into the tunnel with every suction cycle, which causes pain. Too large, and you lose suction efficiency, and can also cause damage, pain and inefficiency with pumping. Getting sized properly fixes more pumping pain than any nipple cream ever will. If your breast pump doesn't come with a flange sizing guide or nipple measure, get in touch with the team at Mom Store and they can help you out.

The truth about early breastfeeding is that almost none of it is a character test. Latch pain, cluster feeding and supply worries are mechanical, physiological things with mechanical, physiological fixes. You don't need to be tougher. You need the right information, and the right support. And if you're the mum quietly wanting this to work, while everyone around you says "fed is best" like it settles the matter — you're allowed to want it to work. Asking for real support to get there isn't being precious. It's just sensible. Most of what's standing in your way is fixable with the right help, not more willpower.