How do you know when your baby has had enough?
Babies under 16 weeks may still have their involuntary sucking reflex present.
This is why it can sometimes be hard to tell if their sucking for hunger or comfort.
So how can we tell if your baby is full?
Quick tip- involuntary means a baby’s subconscious is taking over their conscious part of sucking. So they are not yet equipped with knowing if they are sucking for hunger or for comfort. Some babies do have an ability to stop when full but that also depends on mum and her lactation.
– Babies who are feeding well have a rhythmic motion from their ears down to their jaw. This is how you can tell they are feeding efficiently.– Feeding to extract milk, they will suck twice to every swallow. You should be able to hear them swallow the milk.-Once they start to get full they will become drowsy and may fall asleep. Sucking becomes very shallow and they will often quiver. When they fall off the boob, they may try to relatch and root for the breast. The rooting reflex is also involuntary. Initiated by external stimuli.– Try to re-latch and see if the will feed some more. If they tend to fall asleep very quickly and not feed then they are full.It’s important to remember that if a baby is feeding very frequently and you are often thinking “how can you be hungry” then you are probably right.
Trust that intuition.
It’s powerful.
Babies feed more efficiently when they’ve had time to digest their feeds between 2-3 hours especially for babies over 2 weeks of age. This also depends on your supply. Oversupply and frequent feeds can create other challenges such as reflux, colic and sleep deprivation. Resting between feeds is important. Give your baby a chance to digest a full tummy rather than topping up a half empty one.
Rest to digest