- On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 Sanna-Mari Tonteri wrote: What is "wrong" with these babies who will close their mouth and start sucking "too early" (nipple not yet in the mouth; inverted nipples wouldn't bother this baby ;)), and what could be done about it?? Sannu-Mari: So often when I've seen this, it has happened when the mother is anxious about possible pain on latching - and so hesitates. The baby is opening her mouth nicely, but has reached full-open position, and because the mother is waiting to see this *before* she brings the baby onto the breast, the mouth has closed a little bit from this full-open stage. I've noticed the difference may be only a fraction of a second, but it is enough to lose the wide gape of the mouth. In such situations, I encourage the mother to bring her baby in just before the widest gape, as in that split second it takes her, the widest gape is occurring. We have a saying in English, "He who hesitates is lost", and I apply this, using the feminine pronoun, to the situation when working with Mums. The baby may become frustrated, too, as s/he is going everything right - but the mother's hesitation messes up the dynamics. The baby's frustration increases if the latch is too uncomfortable fort the mother, and more attempts are made to latch, with the mother's hesitation reinforced because it hurt just now. It's a little thing, some fine-tuning, but so hard for an anxious Mum to make this slight change. I intone, while observing her latch again, "She who hesitates is lost", to remind her. Happy New Year. Virginia in Brisbane, Queensland *********************************************** 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(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html