Trust your instincts — with a little help from us

From the second your baby is born, you start connecting with each other through expression, touch, words and actions. Your newborn will use facial expression and movements to not only get your attention, but to tell you what they need and when.

Here at nfant, we developed a feeding approach that trains new and even experienced parents to tune into their baby’s unique needs. We believe that parents can achieve the most feeding success when they learn to decode their baby’s language, spoken through a series of hunger, stress and sleep cues that any caregiver can learn to spot.

Connected Feeding

We coined the term Connected Feeding^TM to describe how a cue-based approach to feeding works with our innovative technology. We do more than teach parents and caregivers how to identify, recognize and respond to their baby’s feeding cues. We amplify and enhance your observations with real-time biofeedback data to help you measure milk volume when breastfeeding, determine if bottle feeding is going well and see how your baby responds to changes and interventions.

So, while you are connecting emotionally with your baby, our nfant Thrive Feeding System adds the first smart feeding technology to today’s connected nursery. For the first time, we are removing the guesswork from feeding by giving parents a data-based gut check in the form of feeding data sent wirelessly to an app on your phone, where it is stored and analyzed to maximize feeding success.

Reading Your Baby’s Cues:
How Babies Communicate

The idea that babies use crying to communicate hunger is one of the most widespread misconceptions today about infant feeding. It’s highly prevalent among new and experienced parents, and even perpetuated by some well-meaning but uninformed medical professionals.

In fact, babies do not cry when they start to get hungry; they cry when they are very hungry and distressed. A crying baby probably showed earlier, more subtle signs of hunger before they started to cry. And once a baby starts crying, it can be much more difficult to help them settle down, let alone initiate a positive feeding experience.

Common Infant Hunger Cues

These non-verbal cues are reliable signals that your baby wants to feed soon:

Sucking

You may notice your baby actively sucking on hands, fists or a pacifier. Even if your baby is calm and happy, having hands, fingers or fists in the mouth is a very common early sign of hunger.

Hands to Mouth

Even if your baby is not actively sucking, your baby may bring a hand or a clenched fist to his or her mouth.

Alertness

A baby who is ready to feed may appear more alert or active, as opposed to sleepy or relaxed. Their eyes will be open, and they may look at you and make clear eye contact.

Crying

Fussing, squirming, agitated movements and ultimately crying are all late-stage hunger cues. If your baby has any difficulty with feeding, then waiting until this stage can make it very difficult to calm your baby or initiate feeding.

Turning to Breast or Bottle

Often called “rooting,” this refers to a baby instinctively turning her head to find her mother’s breast or a bottle.

Tongue/Mouth Movements

Your baby may smack or open his lips or move his tongue. Some babies may make an “mmmm” sound.

What is a Stress Cue?

If your baby cries during feedings, pulls away from the breast or nipple or appears unhappy, you may feel unsure how to respond. You may also worry that you are doing something wrong.

These stress cues are signs from your baby that something about the experience of feeding is not going well, not that you are incapable of feeding your baby. Just like hunger cues, stress cues are movements and expressions that your baby uses as a form of nonverbal communication. In many cases, these cues could be signals that your baby is uncomfortable (and needs a different feeding position), that your nipple flow rate is too fast or that your baby is not ready to feed yet.

Fortunately, the feeding experience is something you can tweak and adapt to meet your baby’s unique needs. The first step is learning to read and understand your baby’s language.

Common Infant Stress Cues

During feeding, babies across the globe signal that something is wrong with a consistent set of stress cues:

Spread fingers (finger splaying)

Your baby may stiffen and/or stretch his fingers wide apart. He may also appear to have stiff or tense arms.

Arched back

Your baby may writhe or arch her back.

Grimacing

Your baby may grimace, frown, look tense or have a wrinkled forehead.

Gagging or leaking milk

You may notice milk leaking out of your baby’s mouth. In more extreme cases, your baby may gag, cough, vomit or cry.

Irregular breathing

Your baby may gulp or pant and make audible breathing noises. You may also notice flared nostrils or noticeable chest movement.

Pulling away

Your baby may pull or turn away from the breast or bottle nipple or push them out of his mouth.

Reading Your Baby’s Cues:
How Babies Communicate