The concept of 'Baby Led Latching' is so endearing and natural. It's the opposite of the techniques I experienced in hospital with my son – the second my newborn dared to open his little mouth the attending nurse would grab my breast and shove it in his little mouth. I get the importance of a deep latch when breastfeeding, but the roughness just felt wrong and unnecessary (and it's not a sight you'll ever see in nature).

In my opinion, getting the right latch can be made unnecessarily stressful by over bearing nurses or lactation consultants (though I know there are so many fantastic professionals out there). The basis of baby led latching is to provide baby with a calm, relaxed environment, allowing him to follow his own instincts – no rush, no pressure.

Babies aren't the helpless beings they're made out to be, they're a lot smarter than we give them credit for. They come equipped with reflexes that help them find and attach to the breast:

• Getting to the breast: stepping and crawling motions
• Finding the breast: searching and rooting
• Attaching: rooting and opening
• Sucking: stimulated by the presence of the nipple at the palate

Allow baby the opportunity and support to use his instinctive reflexes and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Dr. Smillie, a pediatrician, lactation consultant, and baby led latching advocate puts it perfectly:

"I tell moms their job is not to "make" the baby latch, but simply to "allow" the baby to latch."

Baby led latching is particularly helpful for newborn babies who are learning to latch, or for babies that have been put off breastfeeding by negative experiences. For them it's important to allow the full sequence of instinctive reflexes to unfold, where one behaviour leads to the next.


The basic steps of baby led latching

1. Start with a calm (even sleeping) baby
Start with baby either sleeping or in a quiet, alert state. If baby is really hungry, feed him a little milk first to take the edge off (1/2 to 1 oz). If sleeping, let the baby wake up on his own.
The Breast Crawl
Here's a great clip of a latching technique called the "Breast Crawl". It's a chance to see the amazing reflexes a newborn is born with, mentioned earlier. Many of the same principals apply to the breast crawl as in baby led latching, but it's practiced lying down, and usually takes place immediately after birth. Though the instinctive crawling reflex is still present in babies up to several weeks after birth.



Sources:
Baby-led Latching: A "intuitive" approach to learning how to breastfeed
By Mari E Douma, DO