Colostrum (the 'first' milk) begins to change to mature milk during the first week and this is often referred to as the milk 'coming in'. Your breasts will be swollen with extra fluids and, initially, you may be making more milk than your baby takes. At this time, your breasts may become hard, lumpy and painful. Frequent feeding helps to avoid this and expressing a little milk before putting the baby to the breast can also help. A warm bath, or warm flannel held to the breast, will help the milk to flow easily and make expressing easier.

Download this page (together with the other questions), as an information sheet entitled ´Questions New Mothers Ask´ on our leaflet downloads page. You can also download and read this information in Spanish on the leaflet downloads page.

Alternatively, you can purchase this and all the other questions as a paper leaflet from this page. 

We also sell the ABA booklet "Too Much" with contains more information about this issue. Click here to purchase.