Hi, I’m Dr. Alima, and I’m going to be showing you three exercises that can help with your baby’s latch.
In order to demonstrate the exercises I’ve gotten, my son, who is obviously not an infant anymore, but he’s my baby, he’s going to help us today.
The first exercise we’re going to be doing is a cheek stretch. So I’m just going to put my finger in the baby’s mouth and let them suck just to calm them down. Then what we’re going to do is create a little fishhook in the upper lip area and do a C motion stretching the cheek three times. One, two, three. Same thing on the other side. One, two, three. And if you find any areas of tension, you can go and stretch into the area of tension.
The second exercise we’ll do is called gun tracing. I’m going to take my finger, put the pad on the lower gums of the baby’s mouth and go from the back of the mouth all the way to the other side, tracing the gums. What will happen is the baby’s tongue will follow your finger. And so we’re working on the range of motion of the tongue.
And the last exercise we’re going to show you today is doing a sweep over the lip upper gum area. One, two, three.
Please do note that there are many reasons for babies not to latch properly, and so a full assessment for the baby’s mouth with somebody who is familiar with these kind of conditions is absolutely a good way to go. And this is a really nice way to start if you just want to improve your baby’s latch.
