Best Breastfeeding Position For Newborns
Trying To Improve Baby’s Latch? This Is One Of The Best Positions To Get A Deeper Latch
The Cross Cradle Breastfeeding Hold
The cross cradle position for breastfeeding is a great position for new moms that often doesn’t get explained very well or even introduced at all.
I like this hold for new moms because it teaches you how to bring your baby to your breast, versus putting the nipple into the baby’s mouth.
The cross cradle hold allows for more control of the latch and to see what is really happening with baby’s mouth and chin.
I recommend trying a variety of positions to see what is most effective for you and your baby. Using different positions will also help your nipples take on less damage in the early days.
A Few Key Elements To Getting Cross Cradle To Work Well
Make sure baby is staying belly to belly with you and their head is lining up straight with their spine.
Babies are wiggly and slippery so it’s easy for them to slip down or start to roll their shoulder and head away from you.
I show this in the video and this picture below shows a baby lying almost flat on their back and you can see the latch is fairly shallow, they are mostly sucking on just the nipple.
Once they do that then it’s harder for you to bring their mouth to your breast, you start chasing their open mouth with your nipple which is not what we want to do!
Imagine you had to turn your head and look over your shoulder in order to take a bite of food…that’s what baby will be experiencing if they don’t stay lined up belly to belly.
Bring your baby to your breast…NOT breast to baby’s mouth
Bring your baby to your breast…NOT breast to baby’s mouth
It’s soooo hard to fight this tendency but really try to put that into your muscle memory right away…Bring your baby to your breast…NOT your breast to the baby. Your breast can NOT be used like a bottle!!!
The reason is that once baby has a wide open mouth you have a short window of time to bring their mouth onto your breast before it’s closing again.
It’s like that game hungry hungry hippos….You’re trying to get as many marbles into their mouth as you possibly can before it closes again.
Well, not marbles in this case, with baby’s we’re trying to get as much of your areola and surrounding breast tissue into their mouth as possible so that the nipple lands far back in their mouth…
This makes it so it won’t hurt your nipple and it gets the milk out way more efficiently!!! Their mouth has to be wide open and when you see it quickly press between their shoulder blades to guide their open mouth onto your breast.
More areola in baby’s mouth= less nipple pain, better milk transfer from breast to baby!
I Hope This Video Was Helpful! Let Me Know If You Have Questions Or Comments Below
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