Baby Hunger Cues
Are you familiar with your baby’s hunger cues?
What are hunger cues?
Simply put, Baby hunger cues are a baby’s signs of hunger. Babies show us with their body language and of course let us know with their voice when they’re hungry and ready to eat.
Why are hunger cues important?
It’s important to familiarize yourself with your baby’s hunger cues so you know when the best time is for a feeding. The clock is a good gauge and I always recommend using it as a reference to know approximately when your baby last ate and when it’s getting close for another feeding. Use the clock to help encourage a feeding routine and to make sure you are not too early or too late for a feeding. The clock alone, however, isn’t enough to tell us when our babies are ready to eat, we also need to watch our baby’s body language. If we only followed the clock we could potentially miss our baby’s hunger cues, causing us to miss the boat, resulting in a very frustrated or agitated baby and in turn, a less than adequate feeding.
Say you were following a strict 3 hour feeding schedule of 7:00 am, 10:00 am, 1:00 pm, etc…it’s now 12:40 pm and you’re patiently waiting for the clock to strike 1:00 pm so you can feed your baby at their regular time but your baby starts showing active signs of hunger. What now? You can first try a distraction with a toy or a pacifier or bouncing your baby on your knee, but if your efforts to hold your baby off are starting to backfire and baby’s cries are escalating and you can see that he is really hungry and you’re unable to hold him off any longer, go ahead and feed your baby! There is no harm done in feeding a few minutes earlier than their regular feeding time.
I always say, give or take a half an hour in any direction is perfectly ok when it comes to veering from any schedule, whether feeding or sleep. They need that flexibility even within a feeding schedule. In fact, feeding when they are actually hungry and not starving will only benefit them because they will feed well while they are calm, awake and happy as opposed to being frantic, exhausted and past the point of no return.
So yes, watch the clock for reference sake, but also pay attention to your baby’s body language and what they’re telling you in order to know when it’s time for a feeding.
So what are those hunger cues?
Babies have 3 different stages of how they express hunger cues: Early, active and late.
Early hunger cues:
your baby is happy and in a good mood, has probably recently woken from sleep and his/her mouth may be open and looking around for a breast or bottle.
Active hunger cues:
Your baby is getting more actively hungry, showing signs of hunger, rooting, fussing, putting things in their mouth, arching their back.
Late hunger cues:
Baby is now really upset, either screaming or crying, flailing arms and legs, face turning red, very agitated or stressed and frantically turning head from side to side. If your baby gets to this stage of hunger, I recommend bringing your baby into a dark room, then on the white noise, calm him down and then try the feeding. Babies do not eat well when they’re hysterical.
For your convenience I put together a chart for you of baby hunger cues so you can see what they are side by side. See the chart below.
