HUG Your Baby Website
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Newly Certified HUG Teacher Supports Breastfeeding Using The HUG!



Connie Hoffner is a long time maternal-child nurse and lactation consultant in Mount Ulla, North Carolina. She shares her experiences becoming a new Certified HUG Teacher.

I love helping mothers and families learn about their newborns. Using The HUG techniques with families has been such an added benefit. Over the years I have seen that many mothers stop breastfeeding because they do not understand normal newborn behavior. As described in my encounter with the mother below, The HUG Your Baby information enhances a mother’s breastfeeding experience.

Baby Z. and his Mother E. visited me with some questions and concerns about breastfeeding.  The baby was nursing well and had a good latch, had good output and was doing well with weight gain.  However, the mother was concerned about the baby waking up and eating frequently.  I explained to her about a newborn “Zones” and a baby’s Active/Light and Still/Deep Sleep.  She was quickly able to identify the Active Sleep “Zone” and she now realized that over the past few weeks she had assumed that the baby was hungry and needed feeding when she saw that Active Sleep behavior. We discussed suggestions to help him "sleep though" Active Sleep and ways to help him be put down to sleep. 

We then reviewed all 3 newborn ”Zones” – The “Resting Zone”, “Ready Zone” and “Rebooting Zone”.  We talked about playing with the baby during his “Ready Zone”, information she was very happy to share with her husband. 


Mother E was very interested and concerned about the baby's SOS behavior and had noticed that when he was upset he tended to "Switch Off".  We discussed that the baby was very smart to send out signs when he had too much stimulation.  We discussed comforting/calming techniques and that the baby was really good at calming himself.  We talked about the value of talking quietly to him when he showed as SOS holding his hands to his chest, swaddling him, swaying him, making "shooshing sound", placing him on his side, and letting his suck mother’s finger or the breast.  Mother E verbalized more confidence and has contacted me a couple more times with the good news, “I love breastfeeding!”