Colostrum and the First Days: Your Baby's First Milk and First Feeds

Colostrum is your baby’s first milk: small in volume but rich, concentrated, and full of antibodies, and it is all a newborn needs in the first days before your mature milk comes in around day 2 to 5. The small amounts are not a shortage; they are an exact match for a newborn’s tiny stomach.

The first time I hand-expressed a few golden drops and caught them on a tiny spoon, I worried it was nowhere near enough. It was. Understanding that those few millilitres were precisely what my baby’s marble-sized stomach could hold changed everything about how I read those first days. Here is what is happening, and what helps, checked by a lactation consultant. The full journey starts in the breastfeeding pillar guide.

What colostrum is

Colostrum is the thick, often golden first milk produced from late pregnancy through the first days after birth. It is small in volume but highly concentrated: higher in protein and lower in fat and sugar than mature milk, and dense with antibodies and immune cells that protect your newborn and help seal and prime the gut lining. It is sometimes called a baby’s first immunisation for good reason.

It also has a gentle laxative effect that helps your baby pass meconium, the dark first stools, which in turn helps clear the bilirubin that can cause newborn jaundice. So those first small feeds are doing several jobs at once. You may notice colostrum in the last weeks of pregnancy; some people hand-express and save it, though there is no need to.

Why the small volume is exactly right

A newborn’s stomach holds only about 5 to 7 ml on day one, roughly the size of a marble. That is why colostrum arrives in small amounts: a feed of just a few millilitres fills a day-one stomach. The worry that “there is not enough” almost always comes from expecting bottle-sized volumes, which a newborn’s body is not built for yet.

Over the first days, the stomach stretches and the available volume grows alongside it. This is also why the answer at this stage is frequent feeding, not bigger feeds: small, regular top-ups suit both the stomach and your developing supply. Frequent removal in these days is exactly what signals your body to bring in your mature milk, the supply and demand system getting underway.

When your mature milk comes in

Copious, mature milk usually comes in around day 2 to 5 after birth. It can be a little later after a caesarean or a long, difficult birth, which is normal and not a sign of failure. As the milk arrives, breasts often feel full, heavy, warm, or firm: this is normal early engorgement, common around day 3 to 5, and it eases as your baby feeds frequently and your supply settles to demand.

Frequent colostrum feeds in the first days genuinely help your mature milk come in well, so the best thing you can do while you wait is keep offering the breast. If your baby is very sleepy and not feeding, hand-expressing colostrum and offering it on a spoon or syringe keeps things moving until feeding picks up.

Skin to skin and the first feed

Skin to skin contact, ideally in the first hour and often in the days after birth, helps establish feeding and supports supply. Held bare against your chest, your baby stays warmer, calmer, and more stable, and the closeness triggers the rooting and seeking instincts that lead to a first latch. It also encourages the oxytocin behind let-down and the hormones behind milk production.

The first feed often happens in that first hour when babies are alert and instinctive, but if it does not, that is not a problem you cannot recover from. Skin to skin remains useful for days and weeks: it is the thing I went back to every time feeding stalled. A laid-back, biological nurturing position lets your baby use those instincts, and a deep latch makes that first feed comfortable and effective.

What is normal in the first days

Some early weight loss, up to about 7 to 10% of birth weight, is normal, with most babies regaining their birth weight by about 10 to 14 days. Your midwife or health visitor will weigh and check your baby and track output. In these first days, feeds may be frequent, clustered, and at odd hours, including overnight, which is exactly how it is meant to look.

Watch the nappies: by day 5, about 6 or more heavy wet nappies in 24 hours and several soft yellow stools are reassuring signs. More on this in is my baby getting enough milk.

When to seek help in the first days

Get help early if your baby is feeding poorly, very sleepy, or losing more weight than expected. Warning signs worth flagging to a midwife, health visitor, or doctor include a baby who is hard to wake for feeds, who is not producing wet and dirty nappies, whose lips or skin look dry, or who seems jaundiced and increasingly sleepy. These are checks, not alarms, but they are worth acting on promptly.

Equally, if feeding hurts or the latch will not hold, ask early. A midwife or an IBCLC lactation consultant can fix in one visit what might otherwise sour the first weeks. For the day-by-day picture, read breastfeeding a newborn week by week.