If this topic weirds you out, then feel free to stop reading now.

There are a ton of prenatal and parenting classes out there and I winnowed down my list of priorities to just a few. This was one of them.

I was once one of those people who thought: Doesn’t this just happen rather naturally?

But the closer I get to my due date and the more mommies I’m surrounded by, the more I realize that it just ain’t that easy. It takes patience and perseverance … and some tolerance for pain and discomfort.

However, in my opinion, the benefits are worth it: A free source of baby food and major bonding time. Then there are also all those studies about the health benefits, etc…

I attended this class solo, although I was surprised to be in the vast minority without my male partner.

It was led by a lactation consultant so passionate about the topic of breastfeeding that she oozed enthusiasm and unabashedly wore cartoonish stuffed breasts for most of the class to help make her points. If I am assigned the help of someone this jazzed in the hospital then I’m sure I will succeed.

We watched videos that at times made me cringe and/or blush. We used baby dolls to practice our various breastfeeding holds. We examined nipple shields and all kinds of breastfeeding paraphernalia.

There were many helpful tips.

* A newborn’s stomach is about the size of a marble. So she only needs that little bit of colostrum to fill her up at each feeding until her stomach begins to expand to the size of a ping-pong ball in the first week and the size of an egg the following week. So, there’s not necessarily reason to freak out and pour a whole bottle of formula down her throat in the first day.

(Funny story. A friend of mine told me that in her sleep-deprived haze and exhaustion a day after delivery, she got her baby terminology all sorts of mixed up and fretted to the nurse while breastfeeding: “I’m worried. He’s only getting the meconium.” Meconium is, well, something else entirely from colostrum, which is what she meant to say.)

* The long-standing suggestion of alternating breasts every 10 minutes is no longer en vogue. Apparently, there’s foremilk and hindmilk — meaning that the consistency and nutrients in the milk at the beginning of the feeding differs from that at the end. Switching too soon might mean all foremilk, when it’s advisable for the baby to get both.

* Rooming in vs. hospital nursery. It’s a debate that deals with both feeding and rest. The lactation consultant made a good point that’s swaying me toward rooming in. My baby will want me when she wants me, where ever she might be. And if she’s not with me, I’ll likely feel anxious at some point in the day or night, wondering: Is she hungry? Does she need me? Having her in my room will save me the late-night, sleep-disrupting “peace of mind” walk down to the nursery to check.

Do you have any breastfeeding tips to share?