Signs of a Good Latch – What to Look for & How to Fix It

They feel like their latch is off. It's hurting. Something is going wrong. So we are going to get into what a good latch looks and feels like. So if you are looking for a visual guide to what a good latch looks like, check out the link below. I actually made a super cool latch lookbook that is a visual guide for exactly what to look for and what Not to look for.

That's the most common thing. Next that's milk supply, but we talked about that last week. So, yeah. Pain with breastfeeding. I'm an IBCLC, been in practice for almost a decade. I've worked with thousands of moms, and I see moms dealing with breastfeeding pain every single day. So what does that tell us? Yes, we do not want breastfeeding to hurt, but it is so common.

So when we think about this, we want to remember that optimal breastfeeding, so like breastfeeding, In the perfect scenario, does not hurt, but most women when they're figuring out how to get things going, they're figuring out how to get a good latch, how to work with their baby, how to work with their own anatomy, they're going to experience some level of pain.

So if you think about your nipple and areola, because those are two different things, the nipple is the tip, the areola is the tissue around like on this guy right here. If you think of this like a bullseye, this is the center where if you were shooting an arrow, you would want to hit the center right on the tip of your nipple, right?

We want baby to be doing a asymmetrical latch, not a bullseye latch. We do not want baby coming on. Perfectly onto the boob. We want baby coming on chin first and up and over. So you want to have less of the areola of the top of the areola and baby's mouth and more of the bottom of the areola and baby's mouth.

We don't want bottom lip really flared and top lip really, like crunched in and curled under. We want a nice big flare on both sides of baby's mouth. We don't want any tuck on top or bottom If you are noticing that you're getting a bit of a tuck on the top, you can use your finger to gently roll that lip up. If it snaps right back, we want to be curious about what's causing that.

If it won't move at all, we definitely want to be curious about that because that is not a great sign and could be a sign of some sort of restriction going on. Or at the very least, something that we need to do with positioning. From there, we want to be sure that baby's chin is making good contact with your breast.

So that's going to be what makes contact first. And then from there, the top lip is going to come up and over. If baby's nose and chin are making like an equal amount of contact with your breast tissue, that is not ideal. We don't want that happening because That's not going to have the right asymmetrical amount of, areola in their mouths.

Except for in that situation, if you are very well endowed, because in that case it can be really hard. So if you're doing that, trust that if you've got that asymmetrical latch and things are feeling good. If some boob tissue is making contact with baby's nose, we're not gonna, we're not gonna freak out, because if everything else is looking good, that's not the end of the world.

So we definitely want to be sure that from there, we are looking at how is it feeling? So as I said, we don't want pain. We don't want Pinching. We don't want to take baby off the boob and then we see our nipple looks like a tube of Revlon lipstick. We do not want that at all. So, some things that you can look out for for baby.

We definitely want to be sure that we're looking for nice full cheeks, asymmetrical latch, and some space with baby's nose. That's really, really important. So from there, the next thing we want to get into is what is the seal and suction look like? We want to make sure that that flared lips situation is definitely happening, but we want to make sure that there's a good seal.

We don't want babies sucking in a lot of air. We don't want to see milk dripping out of the side of baby's mouth. We want to be sure that that seal is really, really good and that their suction is really good. So what is good suction look and feel like flared lips for one. As far as feel goes, you definitely want to feel some tugging, but no pinching, no pulling.

I'm going to give you that good, unflattering double chin situation. You don't want the double chin happening with your baby. You want that front line open, which is why we want to make that chin contact first. And that's really going to be super duper helpful. If we're seeing that their lips are curled and in tight, that's definitely going to affect their ability to get a good seal and to have good suction.

So the next thing that I really want to get into that I see so much information about now, which I'm so glad that people are at least talking about it, is body alignment. So while I'm so happy that everyone's talking about belly to belly, rolling baby in, that's so great, but a lot of times we're missing very important pieces on what really makes that effective.

What you really, really want to look for is a straight line from baby's crown of their head down through their ear. down through their shoulder, all the way down through their hips. In the Latch Lookbook, it shows you exactly what to look for to make sure that you're getting that alignment that is ideal and optimal and is going to give you a good latch.

If any part of baby is rolling away from you, that is going to be creating tension and pulling baby off of the boob and it's going to prevent you from getting a good latch. So make sure that you're definitely focusing on that. So with body positioning, we can't really talk about that without also talking about positioning in general, breastfeeding positions.

And what was comfortable with your first baby could be different than what's comfortable with your second. So just make sure that you understand that there's really no one way to position your baby for breastfeeding. But if I had to pick, I would say my favorite position is the position that seems to be either not really known about, Or heavily misunderstood and that would be laid back breastfeeding laid back.

But whatever positions make you feel like you have a good amount of control, you feel like you have enough hands. If you're ever feeding your baby and you're like, I wish I was an octopus right now because I do not have enough hands for this business. Like I need at least a couple more people in here.

If you're feeling like that, then we want to tweak positioning. We want you to feel like you're in control, you have enough hands to do what you need to do. From there, I would say my biggest tip with having control is to understand that your baby wants to eat. Everyone likes to accuse babies of being lazy and I totally get where you're coming from.

Because as mamas, we are so giving, we want to make things easy for them. We're like, stay there, honey. I'm going to bring this boobie to you, but you are really going to be working against yourself when you do that. We want to let baby come on to us. We want to trust that they want to eat. We want to trust that if we got that latch and it wasn't great, We can unlatch them and we can try again.

We don't want to feel like we're playing an arcade game and you go to throw the ball and if you didn't get it in right then, then it's over. You lost your chance. Latching your baby is not like that. You can get a bad latch, use your pinky, gently unlatch, get baby back on the boob, try again. They want to eat, they want to work with us.

You don't have to feel like if you missed your shot, it's like that scene in the Titanic where like the doors are closing. And like, if the guy doesn't like get underneath and he's trapped in the water, you know, whatever, forever, it is not a situation like that. Make sure that you remember you can try again. So as far as body alignment, what we do not want to see there is baby's shoulders rolling out. We don't want to see that one side of their face is unevenly smushed into our boob. As babies get older, these rules change. When you are doing gymnastics with an older baby, Your mileage may vary, like if things are feeling good.

If you made it that far, you clearly know what you're doing. But I'm talking about for newborn babies. We don't want to see their faces smushed. We don't want to see part of their nose being covered. We don't want to see any of that. We definitely want to see them nice straight lines. So if we're having hips rolling out, if we're having, shoulders rolling out, we want to get curious and we want to get that fixed.

So, My biggest tip is to let your baby have their arms around your boob like they're trying to give it a big ol hug. Easier said than done sometimes, but understand that trying to pin baby's arms down in a swaddle is almost always going to work against you, and it's typically only going to make them more frustrated.

If, for whatever reason, you want to feed your baby in a swaddle and you're getting a good latch, ride on. Keep, keep on truckin that's great. But if you're struggling, let's probably loosen up their arms and let them use their arms because their primitive feeding reflexes are heavily intertwined with their use of their arms.

I know those newborn outfits are so stinkin cute and you cannot wait to dress them up. And those little frilly butted dresses and those cute little suits or whatever it is. But let's put that on pause and let's keep baby in the breast straw near your boobs. On that note, keeping those boobies out those first few days can be really great.

I know we don't want milk leaking all over the place, but if baby's on your chest as close as they can be making skin to skin contact is so. So important. That's going to let their primitive reflexes really be kicking off really good, and it's going to allow your body to pick up on their cues early.

So please do not sleep on skin to skin. It is so good. Keep that baby in the restaurant, keep them dressed down in their diaper and do all the things that we talked about here and you will be having a much better latch. As I said, the latch look book, very inexpensive by super duper valuable is going to show you exactly what to look for and what to avoid.

Check that out in the link below. I really hope that you guys got a lot of value from this podcast because that is really me dropping some condensed. Decade long acquired knowledge to help you get that good good latch. We want things to feel good We want you to be feeling good. So if anything's off feel free to reach out to me.

I'm always here to support you