I had a baby this week who must have developed one of those "silly habits" in
the womb (that's how I describe it to the parents). He was drawing in his
lower lip while nursing, and so not getting a good seal or deep latch.

I pointed it out to the mom & dad, and demonstrated to the dad (hard for mom
to see) how to check the latch angle while baby was on, and how to gently
extract the lower lip so that it flanged outward (mom did notice a difference
in feel when we did this).

I also showed daddy some "exercises"--playing with baby, mimicking wide open
mouth ("ahhh") and sticking out tongue, and playing "bbbbb" with baby's lower
lip to encourage it to come outward.

I also recommended not to allow the baby to do extra non-nutritive sucking on
its lip, fingers, pacifier or bottle nipple, but to offer the breast for this
purpose & why.

Any other suggestions???? (I see lots of babies with these "silly habits"
such as tongue or lip sucking which I explain to the parents as baby's way of
satisfying its suck needs before birth).

Thanks,

Kathy in NJ

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