Blakely, an IBCLC, explains how to tell when your newborn is actually full during breastfeeding. She covers feeding cues, keeping babies awake at the breast, and the signs that show your baby got a real meal instead of just snacking.
Confession time. When I was a new mom, I thought feed on demand meant I was supposed to feed my daughter Ella anytime she whimpered. Guess what happened? We got in this cycle of snacking instead of getting full feedings. So today I want to talk to you about why full feedings are so important.
Sam.
Now, when I talk about full feedings, I don't want you to think that this means we need to put your baby on a strict schedule or you're not supposed to feed your baby if the clock doesn't say it. No, no, no. I'm a huge believer in always being responsive to a baby's hunger cues. If your baby is hungry, please feed them. If your baby needs cluster feedings, do it. But what I do want to talk to you about is breaking that cycle of snacking so that we can get full feedings. But how exactly are we supposed to do that? Well, today I have invited an IBCLC on the Taking Care of babies team to explain to you just exactly how to do that. Blakely, take it away for us.
Yes. Full feeds are so important, and I'm going to give you three tips and on how to get them. First, you're going to want to know what feeding cues look like. This could look like your baby trying to eat their hand and putting their whole fist in their mouth, smacking their lips, rooting around for a food source. Oftentimes, rooting around for a food source looks like the baby lifting up their head and kind of bopping it back down on the chest as they're looking around for that food source. The next is how to keep your baby awake. This is huge. No one ever tells you how hard it is to keep your newborn awake for a feeding. We're going to make sure that baby is undressed, unswaddled, Lights on, out in the open. You do not need to hold back on stimulation during feedings. During the day, stimulation is good. We want to bother them just enough during a feeding to keep them awake and going. Actively feeding. This could look like tickling their toes, rubbing their back, pumping their arm up and down. You could change positions while breastfeeding, do a diaper change, and then switch sides. Even just you shifting and switching positions are all ways to help keep them awake. I had very stubborn, stubborn, sleepy babies. So one thing that worked really well for me was using the baby wipes, and you kind of rub that nice wet baby wipe on their skin, and that kind of gives them that quick burst of awake so they can finish eating. One thing you have to remember is as Their mom. You're their happy, comfortable place. You're very familiar. They just spent nine, 10 months in your womb, so. So they feel your heartbeat, they smell you. All these familiar, warm smells. It makes it very tempting for a baby not to just fall asleep. So you do really have to make the effort of keeping them awake a lot of the time. Third is how to tell if your baby got a full feeding. This can be tricky because you can't measure it like you can with bottle feeding. One way you can see is just by observing. You have to know what to look for. If you notice, babies tend to start feeding with their fists really tight and pushed close to their chest. And then as you feed and as the baby gets satiated, you'll notice those tight fists start to relax and their whole body relaxes, oftentimes to the point to where they fall back asleep. And then you're left with the question, did my baby fall asleep hungry, or did they fall asleep satiated and content? So what you can do to kind of tell is take their arm and you lift it up. If their arm feels limp and relaxed, most likely your baby got a full feeding and just fell asleep. If you lift that arm up and then they pull it back in tight to your chest like a chicken wing, your baby's probably still hungry. This is a great time to go in, wake them back up, really give them that good stimulation and get them feeding again so you can try to get in that full feed while your baby's eating. You can also hear audible swallowing. Sometimes this can sound like little puffs of air. You can also see milk, oftentimes in the corner of the mouth. That's a great sign because it shows you that they're able to pull that milk out. Another really big sign to look for is jaw movement. You really want to see that jaw movement going all the way back up to the ear. And if you go like this to your jaw, you can see that movement back here. That's the movement that they need to be making to pull that milk out. If your baby is on the breast and you see the chin quivering and the lips kind of quivering, that's what we call butterfly sucking. And your baby is just using you as a pacifier, not really drawing out that milk. So that would be yet another time to go in, get that stimulation in, and wake the baby back up to get a good feeding in. Sometimes when you're watching your baby, you will observe they typically have a certain sucking pattern. So while you're looking at your baby, if you notice that there's those pauses in between sucking, which is normal. But you'll notice sometimes those pauses get longer and longer. That's when you know your baby's starting to fall asleep, and that's another good sign to go in and wake them up. As you can see, babies need a lot of reminders that when they're breastfeeding, no sleeping at the dinner table. It's time to get the job done and eat a full feed. If you're having pain with breastfeeding, it shouldn't be painful if your baby is coming on and off the breast and is inconsolable and frustrated. If your baby's having weight gaining issues, we really want you to go get someone to lay eyes on your baby who can check the latch and check your supply. They can really check the baby's anatomy and yours to make sure that breastfeeding goes smoothly.
