You're two, maybe three days past the birth. You put your baby to the breast, you give it a gentle squeeze and at most a thick yellow drop appears. Your breasts feel soft and empty, as though there's nothing in them at all. And your baby doesn't seem satisfied: rooting, crying, wanting the breast again and again. Everyone told you the milk would just come. Now here you are at three in the morning thinking: barely anything's coming, my baby is hungry, and I'm simply not making enough.
Almost every mother goes through some version of this panic in the first days, and almost nobody says it out loud. So let's set it straight right away. What you're making now is called colostrum. It comes in tiny amounts, and that's exactly enough, because your newborn's stomach is just as tiny. The rich, plentiful milk only comes in a few days later. And the most important thing in this whole piece: you're probably measuring your milk supply against the wrong things. How full your breast feels, how much you can express, how often your baby wants to feed, all three feel like proof of "too little" and all three are, in this phase, perfectly normal and completely unreliable.
This article gives you what most sites skip. Not another reassuring one-liner, but the reliable yardstick: what you actually read your supply off (the nappy, the weight, a settled baby after the feed), set against the signs you can now learn to ignore. And because a slow start sometimes genuinely is real, you get a clear red-flag list: exactly when, in these first days, you call a lactation consultant, midwife or GP.
Short answer: in the first days you make colostrum, and it comes in drops to teaspoons, not in gushes. That's normal and it's enough, because on the first day your baby's stomach is about the size of a marble. The mature milk usually comes in somewhere between day 2 and day 5, and until then your breast still feels soft. Whether you're making enough isn't something you read off how your breast feels or how much you can express, but off the nappy: from day 4 to 5 at least about 6 wet nappies and a few yellow poos a day, together with a baby who comes off the breast content after a feed and weight that climbs again after an initial dip. Do seek help if your baby drops towards 10 per cent of their birth weight, is too sleepy to wake for feeds, turns yellow, or if your milk still hasn't come in after about five days.
Why "barely anything" comes in the first days (and that's right)
The misunderstanding sits in what you expect to see. You picture milk the way it looks in a bottle: white and in a generous amount. But in the first days your body isn't making mature milk yet. It's making colostrum: a thick, often yellowish or clear fluid that comes in very small amounts. We're talking about drops to a couple of teaspoons a feed, not millilitres you can see spraying out. Colostrum is often invisible too: your baby drinks it straight down without you seeing anything run. That's exactly why so many mothers believe their baby got nothing at all, when in fact something did go in.
And that small amount isn't a shortfall. It matches your newborn's stomach, which is surprisingly small. On the first day, according to the common guidance from breastfeeding organisations like La Leche League, it's roughly the size of a marble, holding about five to seven millilitres. By around day three it grows to the size of a walnut, and only after a week or so to about an apricot. So a newborn stomach is almost empty again nearly as soon as it was full. That explains straight away why your baby wants to feed so often: not because there's too little, but because only a little fits in each time.
When does the mature milk come in?
The abundance arrives later than most women expect. Usually the mature milk comes in somewhere between day 2 and day 5, for many mothers around day three or four. You notice it in breasts that suddenly feel fuller, warmer and sometimes a bit tight, and you may get some engorgement in those days. Until then your breast stays soft, and that's not a sign there's nothing in it. As long as your baby latches and feeds regularly, a soft breast in the first days is exactly what you should expect.
If it takes a little longer for you, until day four or five, that on its own needn't mean anything's wrong, especially after a caesarean, a difficult birth or a lot of blood loss, as those can hold the milk back a touch. What moves the milk along is simple, and it's the opposite of resting: feed often. The more often your baby feeds at the breast, the faster and more fully your supply comes in. If your milk genuinely stays away after about five days, that does need looking at, and further down you'll read exactly when.
You're measuring your milk with the wrong yardstick
Here sits the heart of nearly every sleepless panic in that first week. The problem usually isn't that you don't know how breastfeeding works. It's that you're reading your supply off the three things that, in this phase, say nothing. Recognise them?
- How full or soft your breast feels. A soft breast feels like an empty breast, so you conclude there's nothing in it. But in the colostrum phase your breast is meant to be soft, and even later how your breast feels tells you little about what's inside. Soft doesn't mean empty.
- How much you can express. You express after a feed and no more than twenty millilitres comes out, so you think: see, too little. But a pump is far less efficient than your baby, especially in the first days, and colostrum barely lets itself be expressed anyway. What the pump gets says almost nothing about what your baby takes at the breast.
- How often and how unsettled your baby wants to feed. A baby who's on the breast every five minutes, rooting and crying, feels like a baby who's starving. But that behaviour goes with a small stomach and with the days when your baby is actively driving your supply up. Frequent feeding is the mechanism, not an alarm.
Against those three unreliable signs stand the reliable ones. Those you can use, either to reassure yourself or to raise the alarm: the nappies (wees and poos per day), the weight, tracked by your midwife or health visitor, and how your baby behaves after the feed. A baby who comes off the breast content after a feed, relaxes and goes drowsy, and who you can hear swallowing while feeding, is getting what they need. So turn your attention away from your breast and your pump, towards the nappy and the scales.
Don't watch your breast, watch the nappy
The nappy is your best gauge in the first week, and the lovely thing is you've got it right there in front of you every time. It tells you whether enough is going in, because what comes in also comes out again. A rough rule of thumb the NHS and breastfeeding organisations use:
- Wet nappies climb with the days. Day 1 about 1 wet nappy, day 2 about 2, day 3 about 3, and from day 4 to 5 at least about 6 properly wet nappies a day. A properly wet nappy feels heavy, as if you'd poured a few tablespoons of water into it.
- The poo changes colour. In the first days the stool is black and sticky (meconium). Around day three it turns greenish, and from day four to five yellow and soft. That colour shift to yellow is a strong sign that the mature milk is coming in. In the first weeks you expect at least about 3 yellow poos a day.
- The wee is pale. Clear to pale-yellow, odourless wee is what you want. Dark, concentrated wee, or orange to pink powdery marks in the nappy after day three, is not, and we come back to that under the red flags.
If you're seeing those wet nappies and yellow poos on schedule, then there's most likely nothing wrong, however empty your breast feels. If you want more to go on beyond the nappy about whether your baby is drinking enough, run through the signs your baby is getting enough.
Why your baby wants to feed non-stop
Around day two to five a great many mothers get the feeling they do nothing but feed. Your baby drinks, falls asleep, wakes ten minutes later and wants more. Some mothers feed almost continuously through half the night. It feels like proof that there's too little, but it's the exact opposite: this constant feeding is precisely the signal your breasts need to let the mature milk come in. Supply and demand, literally. The more your baby feeds in these days, the faster and more fully your supply comes in. It's hard and it's normal, and it settles by itself once the milk is flowing well.
If the latching itself still isn't working and every feed drags on forever, then you're in the phase where almost everyone struggles. Look at whether you can get a deeper mouthful, because a good latch makes it a lot easier for both you and your baby. In what a good, deep latch looks like you'll see, step by step, how that works. And if feeding hurts or your nipples come back damaged, go through pain-free feeding and what to check first, because pain isn't a standard part of the deal.
When a slow start genuinely is a reason to seek help
And then the honest part, because reassurance without limits would let you down. Most of the time a soft breast and a small amount of colostrum are completely normal. But sometimes a slow start genuinely is real, and then every day counts. In the first week, get in touch with your midwife, health visitor, GP or a lactation consultant if you have one or more of these signs:
- Weight loss towards or past 10 per cent. A drop of around 7 to 10 per cent of birth weight in the first days is normal, and most babies are back to their birth weight by around day 10 to 14. If your baby sinks towards or past 10 per cent, or the weight keeps falling after a few days, that needs assessing and usually topping up. This is the line at which your midwife or health visitor steps in.
- Fewer than about 6 wet nappies a day from day 4 to 5. Or nappies that stay dark or barely wet after day three. Or orange to pink powdery crystals in the nappy. That points to too little going in.
- Your milk still hasn't come in after about five days and your breasts aren't getting fuller. Then someone should look at the latch and the supply.
- A baby too sleepy to wake for feeds, who you can barely rouse, feels floppy, or won't or can't feed. A newborn who feeds fewer than about eight times in 24 hours needs actively waking to be fed.
- Yellowing skin or eyes (jaundice) together with sleepiness, or signs of dehydration like a dry mouth, a sunken soft spot on the head or very little wee. Call the same day.
A single stray sign doesn't spell disaster, but don't wait until it feels bad enough. In these early days you've got care around you anyway, so use it. Practically, where to turn. In the UK your community midwife looks after you for roughly the first ten days after birth; after that your health visitor takes over, and your baby is weighed at the baby clinic. A lactation consultant (IBCLC) is worth her weight in gold for going through the feeding with you. If you get a fever with a red, warm, painful patch in your breast and a fluey feeling, that fits mastitis (inflammation of the breast, which can become an infection), and you call your GP straight away; out of hours, NHS 111. Not sure whether it's worth a phone call? It is. In these days there's no question too small.
If you do have to top up
Sometimes your health visitor or GP advises topping up, for instance with too much weight loss or a baby who's too sleepy. That often feels like failure, and many mothers fear that a single bottle of formula will scupper breastfeeding for good. It isn't that black and white. Topping up on medical advice is not a dead end, and it doesn't mean you can't do it. In most cases you can keep latching and expressing to build your supply up, so that step by step you work back towards fully breastfeeding. For some mothers that building-up takes weeks and then goes on to work fully anyway. Don't do this off your own bat: let a lactation consultant or your midwife make a plan with you, so the topping up supports your supply rather than holding it back. If your milk genuinely won't build despite frequent feeding, then in low milk supply or a slow let-down: what helps you'll read what else might be going on and what helps.
When your milk does come in
Once your milk comes in properly, somewhere around day three to five, the picture often flips all at once. Where you were first afraid of too little, you now meet full breasts that leak on their own between feeds, wet patches on your top and a soaked sheet at night. That leaking goes with a supply gathering steam, and it's the other side of the same coin. How that develops from there and what settles the leaking down, you can read in everything about leaking, the let-down reflex and staying dry.
It's for those days that we made our nursing bra. It's wireless and knitted from a soft, giving fabric that holds your fuller breast in place without pressing hard anywhere, with a clip that opens one-handed so you can feed quickly even in the middle of the night. It's made from an OEKO-TEX Class I certified fabric (certificate number 11-36224), the strictest category for textiles that touch a baby's skin. And the absorbent layer catches up to 30 ml per cup (up to 60 ml for the whole bra), so your top stays dry when you leak between feeds. It doesn't solve your milk coming in, that's down to frequent feeding and, where needed, your lactation consultant or GP, but it makes the days after a good deal drier and more comfortable. If you'd rather have everything about latching and feeding in one place first, go to the latching and feeding overview. And you can see the bra itself here: see the nursing bra.
Frequently asked questions about the first days and milk coming in
Hardly any milk comes when I squeeze or express, is that bad?
Usually not. In the first days you make colostrum, and it comes in drops to teaspoons rather than gushes, and it barely lets itself be expressed. So what you squeeze or pump tells you almost nothing about what your baby takes at the breast. Look at the nappy instead: enough wet nappies and yellow poos means enough is going in.
When will my milk come in after the birth?
For most mothers the mature milk comes in between day 2 and day 5, often around day three or four. You notice it in breasts that get fuller, warmer and sometimes tight. After a caesarean or difficult birth it can be a little later. Frequent feeding helps it come in. If your milk still hasn't come after about five days, get it looked at.
How many wet nappies should my baby have in the first days?
It climbs with the days: day 1 about 1 wet nappy, day 2 about 2, day 3 about 3, and from day 4 to 5 at least about 6 properly wet nappies a day, plus a few yellow poos. Fewer than 6 wet nappies a day from day 4 to 5, or dark, concentrated wee, is a reason to call your midwife, health visitor or GP.
My baby wants to feed non-stop, does that mean too little milk?
Almost never. Wanting to feed constantly in the first days goes with a small stomach, and it's exactly the signal your breasts need to let the milk come in. Frequent feeding drives your supply up. Check whether your baby comes off the breast content after a feed and whether the nappies are on schedule. If those are good, your baby is getting what they need, however often they want it.
Is topping up the end of breastfeeding?
No. Topping up on medical advice, for instance with too much weight loss, is not a dead end. In most cases you can keep latching and expressing to build your supply up and so work back towards fully breastfeeding. Do this with a plan from a lactation consultant or your midwife, so the topping up supports your supply rather than holding it back.
Read on in this guide
- The signs your baby is getting enough
- What a good, deep latch looks and feels like
- Pain-free feeding: what to check first with sore nipples
- Low milk supply or a slow let-down: what helps?
- Everything about latching and feeding (the overview)
