Hi all 
 
I am huge fan of baby-led feeding. I always begin with it. It begins with
skin-to-skin with baby laying along mum's midline with baby's head on mum's
chest. I have experienced issues with attachment disappear and mum and baby
have the most enjoyable, satisfying feeds that they have ever had. 
 
The successful feed has not always happened when I am there with the dyad.
To be truly baby-led the baby decides when he/she will attach and suckle and
this takes time. Not adult time but baby time. It is also my experience that
for baby-led feeding to be a successful and enjoyable experience for both
parties, baby needs to go through his/her instinctive reflexive behaviours. 
 
It would seem to me that there is a pattern of behaviours that baby needs to
go through to get things right for itself. These baby behaviours seem to be 
 
Find breast (the crawling and pushing to get to the nipple and areola) 
Massage breast (paw at the breast) 
Nuzzle 
Lick the breast 
 
I know that some people are currently studying baby-led behaviours at the
breast (sorry their name escapes me). The preliminary findings of the
findings are that where there is no interference from adults in getting baby
attached and the baby does it in their own time - feeding does not encounter
problems UNLESS (sorry about the shout but not sure how else to put the
stress on it) there is a problem. 
 
If a baby is not able to lead their own feeding there is a problem. Giving
baby space and time to find out for themselves does one of 2 things 
* Rights difficulties baby has been having with attachment and transfer 
* Becomes a tool to access that there is a problem and we need to look for
the reasons why e.g. Drugged birth or/and intervention, oral anomaly
neurological anomaly or syndromes etc. 
 
If there is a problem, then either we explore ways to support baby and
mother according to the problems identified.  At times we suggest bottle
feeding, expressing and feeding expressed milk while encouraging as much
skin to skin as mum wants to do.   
 Would like to spend more time sharing my experiences with this, but I need
to go.  
 
Cheers
Ruth Fiedler
Australia

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