Hint for before you start reading: It's not the swimming stroke!

No, this type of crawl is one that your new-born, only moments old, needs no lessons to know how to do. Left  uninterrupted, skin-to-skin, for as long as they can be, your baby is primed to display a series of 9 behaviours with the end position being to latch onto the breast for a first feed - the start of your breastfeeding journey! The calmer the environment for you both the better, without lots of visitors coming and going or lots of people handling your new arrival.

These 9 Instinctive newborn behaviours aka Breast Crawl are:

1. Birth Cry - baby takes first breath!

2. Relaxation - a pause 

3. Awakening - baby opens their eyes 

4. Activity - begins to root for the breast

5. Rest - a pause between exploration 

6. Crawling - baby will use his feet against your tummy to propel himself to the breast

7. Familiarisation - once at the breast, baby licks around the areola and nipple and aims for latching 

8. Suckling - begins to suckle 

9. Sleeping - feeding makes baby sleep

These behaviours can be aided along by  encouraging the following:

• Instead of whisking baby away to wipe him clean, leave all the lovely amniotic fluid from babies first home on baby's skin, especially hands to keep baby's scent as natural as possible and also allow baby to leave a trail to the breast to find his way back again. 

• Your baby does not need to be taken away for weighing until after his first feed. If weighing is necessary (it shouldn't be….), baby should be kept on his tummy so he doesn't startle by being flipped onto his back.

• You can ask for a hat not to be put on baby as there is no real reason why, held against your body, baby should be losing heat and require this. Having access to his head means you can sniff baby's scent and trigger a rush of oxytocin

• You can ask for any medical interventions that need to be given to baby, to be done while on you wherever possible! 

• If you're already a couple of weeks into your feeding journey, you can still encourage these natural behaviours by letting baby lie naturally on your tummy, recreating the postnatal skin-to-skin experience, and give the 2 of you some uninterrupted time for baby to explore. Some like to try this in the bath to simulate birth even further.

You and baby can then spend plenty of time getting to know each other and hopefully get off to a positive start with your feeding journey.