Breastfeeding rules:

1. You must relax for those hormones to work. Take up meditation. Do it now

2. You must be well hydrated. No caffeine, no refined sweeteners (cane sugar, corn sweeteners) all whole food, high percentage raw fruits and vegetables. Drink a gallon a day of filtered or distilled water.

3. Know your herbs. Blessed thistle is excellent. Saw palmetto, fennel seed, fenugreek, wheatgrass juice, alfalfa are all very excellent. Shatavari is more potent but causes some milk duct discomfort so I usually use the other options.

Also, if you totally focus on your baby, connect, connect, connect…put your phone down. Focus on the baby. Once it’s all going well, read a book but don’t get on your phone or any screen.

I realize that some conditions exist where the baby cannot nurse or the mother cannot. 26 years of practice makes me feel that almost all of these are ignorance or just not a real firm commitment to it.

I had a baby go on nursing strike at 6 months old. She never nursed again. This was because my wife did not connect with her and it was stressful for her to nurse. She was also my only vaccinated child, so…

We never used formula. I consider it poison. It throws off nutritional balance in ways that are hard to reclaim. It is highly congesting.

Here are several options: (instructions of most of these are found on my website: soundmountainhealing.com)

Slippery elm gruel

Fresh almond milk

Fresh hazelnut milk

Marshmallow root decoction

Raspberry leaf tea

Ripe avocado

Ripe bananas (mash Jurassic green into this)

Fresh, raw goat milk with a teaspoon of blackstrap molasses per cup

Coconut milk (must be made fresh from the raw coconut manna/butter in the blender like almonds and hazelnuts)

Richard Schulze’s superfood

Soy milk (risk of allergies exists) with blackstrap molasses (1 teaspoon per cup).

Milks may be sweetened a little with maple syrup, turbinado sugar or we always used honey. If honey is real, raw honey it is zero threat of botulism.

The only thing you need to know is to rotate whatever you choose every 3-4 days in order to prevent allergies.

I cannot address every possible permutation of problems. I can tell you that some people get stopped by hard things and others go forward and triumph over even harder things. I say choose to be the latter. Be creative. Have faith.

Women with large breasts and nipples that do not respond correctly or which are also very large may have to pump for a while for mechanical reasons. Just keep trying that baby on so as it gets big enough it can start nursing. Way too many nursing problems are actually from getting an epidural which makes a sleepy, sedate baby during the time that that nursing reflex should be activating. If the baby doesn’t activate that reflex right away, it may never quite do it right. If the reflex is not vigorous then the baby might not overcome obstacles.

I get a little tired of hearing about tongue and lip ties which are almost never severe enough to actually stop nursing (if they are, they can be clipped by the parent with minimal pain sufficient to remove the nursing obstacle). The real problem is a healthy baby and healthy mother, both free of chemicals which would interfere with brain activity and normal development, activity and hormones. It’s easy to blame on the frenulum that which is actually caused by the epidural!

I know real problems exist but for the sake of your baby, sidestep the ones you can by preparing early on to be really healthy through the pregnancy, to avoid chemicals, to have a natural birth (this means Bradley method classes or at least the books, eating only whole food, taking the herbs that have prepared women to have healthy deliveries for thousands of years—not much has changed, including a majority ignoring these instructions and having problems because of it). Go to the La Leche league well before giving birth to start learning from other women and their successes.

PREPARE TO SUCCEED!