One of the biggest worries for a parent of a newborn is whether your baby is eating enough and gaining weight appropriately.  Did you know the time to feed your baby is not when your baby is crying? Why??   

By the time baby is crying, he is becoming more disorganized, frantic, and stressed.  He then may struggle to calm and settle in order to have a successful feeding experience.  Baby will be using unnecessary energy to settle and calm.  When baby is unsettled and crying, he may struggle to search and feel the nipple (breast or bottle), root, latch, and unable to begin sucking.  In addition, he may experience GI discomfort such as spit ups, gas, and wet burps during and following the feeding.   

Baby’s feeding experience will be most successful when you begin a feeding as he is showing early feeding cues. 

To help develop a positive and strong foundation of feeding skills and a love of eating, the goal is that EVERY feeding is an opportunity for the experience to be pleasurable, comforting, and stress-less for both baby and her care provider.  For the first 8-10 weeks of life, there will be lots of opportunities for these experiences since your baby will eat 10-12 times in a 24-hour period! 

For most healthy newborns, there are many early feeding cues that your newborn will provide to indicate that she is ready to nurse or be offered her bottle.   Keeping your baby close or nearby will help you to identify these early feeding cues.    

What are these early feeding cues? 

• She will start to turn her head, stir, and grunt. 

• When his hands are positioned near his face, he will turn his head toward his hand.  He will then occasionally lick or open his mouth as his fingers or fist touches his mouth. {Side note extra (and more to come on a later post!): When swaddled, baby’s hands should be softly tucked near their face.  Why? You are helping their nervous system form important nerve connections and having their hands near their face provides opportunities for lifelong skills of self-comforting skills!} 

• As baby begins to transition to a more drowsy or wakeful sleep, baby’s breath will become more irregular and his eyebrow’s may rise up and down.  You may notice his eyelids may partially open then close. 

• If you are doing long periods of skin to skin between feedings, you will notice your competent little babe begin to squirm and shift towards your breast (whether you are breastfeeding or not).  Your baby is very familiar with your smell and especially the smell of your breast milk.  Your beautiful, competent baby instinctively knows where to search for food and how to get there! 

When you notice these early signs, you can begin preparing for the feeding time! 

It is ok if baby is not fully awake.  In this drowsy, beginning to wake state, your baby will be more organized, have optimal energy, and will have better quality feedings.  These are all important components to help baby have a pleasurable feeding experience, optimize weight gain, and have a wonderful bonding time for you and baby! 

In contrast, late feeding cues include crying, turning red in the face, and lots of body movements.  At this point, you will most likely need to first calm baby before they are settled and organized to eat.  And then everyone is stressed! 

Feeding your baby when he or she shows early feeding cues will help your baby THRIVE! 

Know someone with a newborn baby?  Please share this post!  We want to help babies and their families THRIVE! Have more questions?  Contact ProActive Pediatric Therapy, we want to help!