When I first started meditating, I breathed normally, but focused on it. My thoughts kept moving off my number, or my breath, or whatever I was focusing on at the time, so I developed a trick that worked for me (yay).

When I first start meditating I breathe sharply inwards, hold, breathe sharply out, hold, rather then slow, calm breathing (the holding is to prevent hyperventilation, that would be bad). After a while I find it a lot easier to focus on my breathing, and I can calm it down to normal levels (and maybe lower... it kinda all blends together at that point).

Just tossing my bottle into the endless sea that is the internet, hope it helps someone