Feeding your baby as often as he seems hungry will make sure that you produce the amount of milk your baby needs. If you try to time the feeds or feed to a schedule (like a certain number of minutes on each breast every three or four hours) you may upset the demand and supply mechanism that ensures you produce enough milk to meet your baby’s needs.
Breastmilk itself has a component known as “inhibitory factor”. A build up of this factor within the breasts causes the production of milk to slow down. If you don’t keep removing milk (by feeding or expressing), over time your milk supply will dwindle away. This is what happens in women who choose not to breastfeed – over a period of days or weeks their breasts stop making milk.
You will find breastfeeding easier if you don’t mix it with formula feeding. Formula milk is harder for a baby to digest, so it stays in the stomach for longer. This can make your baby less keen to breastfeed, which in turn will mean that your body thinks less milk is needed, so you produce less.
Also, while you and your baby are learning to breastfeed, giving a bottle or a dummy may confuse your baby, meaning that he sucks less effectively and gets less milk. A breastfeeding baby uses his tongue and jaw to press the breast tissue, removing the milk. The sucking action used to take milk from a bottle is totally different. Dummies may also cause problems – your baby should be getting all his sucking practice on your breast.