>I think gentle cuing on a relaxed chin, just to give the >baby the feel of a wide open mouth I've had several "don't want to open" babies. One trick we've tried is to work with baby's inherenet mimicry. When mom and baby are face to face at diaper change or playtime or whatever, MOM (or dad) opens wide and very gently presses baby's chin to encourage baby to open wide too. When baby opens at all more than his mouth already was, mom (or dad) laughs, smiles, says good job, whatever works for them. No negative responses allowed! On a purely empiricle basis it seems to help. The point was to dissociate opening and having something stuffed into the mouth and to rebuild a positive association to mouth-opening. Average time for clients is actually less than 24 hours. Baby then seems more willing to open for latching. Repeat: no research, just observation and moms' reports. At the very least, it appears to be free of harm, free, and teaching mom a baby game. While she's playing with the baby, maybe the baby just figures out the feeding thing. Judith *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html