What is suction confusion?

Suckling confusion in newborns can be very stressful for new mothers when breastfeeding. Sucking confusion means that a newborn is confused by different sucking techniques on its mother’s breast, on the teat of a bottle, on the pacifier, etc. and has difficulty sucking correctly at the breast.

That’s why, like most breastfeeding consultants, I recommend only offering your baby the breast at first, if possible, so that your child learns this technique safely. Only when this works well can you introduce “Papa-Schoppen” etc. at your own request. Sometimes, however, there are simply medical reasons why you have to feed early. However, it is very, very desirable to feed “breastfeeding-friendly”. This means that you don’t give the baby the necessary additional food with a bottle teat, but rather with a cup or – my favorite method: with a syringe and a fine catheter tube.

The tube is attached to the breast, protruding a few millimeters above the nipple, so that the baby can suckle at the breast and the mother or father can also slowly give the baby the required amount of milk via the syringe. The child experiences that it is fed at the mother’s breast. And not with dad at the bottle.

Case study: Jenny and her boys

Jenny experienced this after the birth of her first son Lenny. Lenny was born just over 3 weeks early. Mathematically a premature baby. A so-called “late-preterm”. They are often still a little weak on drink. Lenny also had to be treated for neonatal jaundice in the neonatology department. Neonatology departments have a strong focus on medical facts, which is understandable on the one hand, but on the other hand you would achieve the same goal with little effort and could often avoid the problem of “sucking confusion”.

Jenny and I sat down together before the birth and discussed what would certainly be different this time in the hospital right from the start.

I am so grateful to Jenny that she was immediately willing to do this case study. Case studies may help you women even more than my “lecturing”.

2 months after the birth, Jenny and I took stock once again at the end of our postpartum together. A positive balance. So beautiful!

Thank you Jenny and all the best to you four!