Keeping Sleepy Babies Awake for Breastfeeding

Video Transcript

"In this clip I am going to show you how to keep a sleepy baby awake and actively breastfeeding. One of the most common complaints from new mothers with their newborns is that the baby just simply can't stay awake during the feeding. New babies are very very sleepy and they sleep a lot. So here are some techniques to keep that baby awake. One of the things you can do we call it The Chicken Arm is just lift up the baby's arm and play with it a little bit until they start suckling again. Another thing you can do is play with the baby's cheek like so. Sometimes you can blow on the baby, you can tickle their feet, lift their leg up. If the baby simply won't wake up, if you have the baby swaddled, un-swaddle the baby and then also take the baby's clothes out. If it's cool out you might want to just open the feet up off their little Onesie and take their feet out and cool them off this way. Sometimes for some babies you need to get them just down to their diaper and maybe throw a little blanket over them. One other thing that you can do is pick the baby up and say mommy loves you wake up it's time to feed, give them a little kiss, give them a little burping, see if that wakes them up and then once their awake you can lay them back down to feed. Another trick that we use is to take a wet washcloth and just wet the baby's face a little bit and blow. So it's a little bit cool and wakes the baby up. Basically what you want to do is be lovingly annoying just to keep that baby constantly nursing for the feed. Chicken arm, tickle the feet, blow on the face, and tickle the chin."