How do I know that my baby is drinking?

This is what a feed should look like

Note the position of the baby at the breast. Chin in the breast, nose not touching, baby covering more of the areola with the lower lip than the upper. An asymmetric latch.

The pause in the chin as the baby sucks means the baby just got a mouth full of milk. The longer the pause, the more milk he got.

A baby who drinks like this for 20 minutes straight (for example, we are not recommending feeding by the clock), might not take the other side, he would be full.

Timing feedings makes no sense.

This baby bellow is nibbling and not feeding

This baby is eight weeks old and is doing almost no drinking, though very occasionally one sees a short pause in the baby’s chin. A baby who breastfeeds only with this type of sucking could stay on the breast for hours and still not get enough milk. Something needs to be done here and if achieving a better latch, using compression doesn’t help, the baby almost certainly needs to be supplemented.

The best way to supplement the baby is with a lactation aid at the breast. Why?

1. Babies learn to breastfeed by breastfeeding 2. Mothers learn to breastfeed by breastfeeding 3. The baby continues breastfeeding and thus continues getting milk from the breast and thus increases the mother’s milk production 4. The baby is not likely to refuse to latch on 5. There is much more to breastfeeding than breast milk, as important as the breast milk is

See the video clip “Inserting a Lactation Aid”

Inserting SNS (lactation aid)