Baby Body Language During Breast-feeding

If you want to learn a little more about your baby, observe during a breastfeeding session how he reflects through his or her behavior what he dislikes. For example if he or she:

• Becomes rigid
• Stops sucking
• Cries
• Throws up
• Denies to grab onto the nipple after having let go of it

The vigor, frequency and regularity with which your baby sucks will largely depend on your attitude towards him or her, in other words, the way in which you look at him or her, the way you hold him and how aware you are of her needs.

Since it is normal that as a mother of a premature baby you oscillate between fear and guilt, the anxiety and the joy, the hope and the deception, or that you have mood swings due to your own prematurity and or postpartum depression, just breast deeply every time you feel one of these fears coming on:

• That your baby will choke if he or she sucks too hardly.
• Or that if he or she does it too slowly, that the baby will not gain the necessary amount of weight.

When feeding the baby the first times, take your time to carry out what you have set out to do. Breastfeeding is something you both have to get used to.

It is probable that before placing the baby on your chest for him or her to eat, that you will need to sing to her, talk to him, touch and hold etc, so that the baby feels more relaxed can comfortable. You will need to be so too. For some babies however, when they are very small, all this preparation can cause too much stimulation, so go along with your intuition.

If the baby does not recognize your breast as a source of food, he might lick it, play and sleep on it as a manifestation of love. This might be the baby’s personal way of finding out what this new experience is all about. Either way, if the baby has been tube fed before, or bottle fed, he or she may simply not be interested in sucking, so just be patient.