How to Get Your Baby to Open Mouth Wider for a Better Latch
Struggling with how to get your baby to open their mouth wider to latch?
You already know that opening wide is the key to a better latch — but when you can’t figure out how to actually get your baby to do it, every feed can feel frustrating.
Here’s the truth: most babies can open wide — they just need the right cue. And the one you’ve probably been taught often doesn’t work.
If your baby isn’t opening their mouth wide enough to get a good latch, it’s not a baby problem or a you problem. It’s usually a reflex issue — and how you cue them makes all the difference.
In this blog, I’ll show you how to help your baby open their mouth wider, why the common “stroking the lips” advice often backfires, and what really works to make breastfeeding more comfortable.
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This post is to help a baby open wider. If you're struggling with getting your baby to open at all to latch, start here instead.
Why Babies Don’t Open Wide to Latch
When your baby won’t open wide enough to get a good latch, it’s usually not because they can’t — it’s because their reflexes are being cued in the wrong order.
Most parents are taught to stroke the nipple down their baby’s lips to get the mouth open.
But you may have noticed that as soon as your nipple touches your baby’s lips, they clamp, chew, or suck your nipple inside.
They don’t open wide.
The reason? Touching the lips cues the sucking reflex — not the open-your-mouth-wide (gaping) reflex.
If you’ve been wondering how to help your newborn open wide to latch, the key is knowing that your baby needs two reflexes to work together — in the right order.
The gaping reflex tells your baby to open wide and get ready to feed. The sucking reflex tells your baby to close their mouth, create a vacuum, and start swallowing. Together, these reflexes make feeding effective and comfortable.
If you skip over the gaping reflex, your baby may still latch — but it will be with a narrowed mouth that pinches your nipples and makes feeding harder than it needs to be.
That’s why the next step matters: learning how to cue the gaping reflex first, so your baby opens wide before sucking begins. Let’s look at exactly how to do that.
How to Use the Gaping Reflex to Get Your Baby to Open Wide
It’s actually pretty simple once you know this: the gaping reflex comes from a cue to your baby’s chin — not their lips.
When your baby plants their chin against your chest or breast tissue, you’ll usually see a big, yawn-sized, wide-open mouth.
As they move forward and your nipple finally goes inside, they begin to close down — but now, all the extra tissue inside their mouth keeps it wide and supported.
That’s what creates the deeper, more comfortable latch you’ve been trying to get — without the pinching. This simple shift is key if you’ve been wondering how to help your baby or newborn open wide for breastfeeding.
Now that you know the “why” and the “how,” let’s look at it in real time — so you can see both reflexes working together step by step.
Video: What It Looks Like When Your Baby Opens Wide to Latch
Let’s look at what happens when you use a chin-first approach to cue the gaping reflex with a baby less than a week old.
It’s a short video because the process happens quickly in real life, so you may want to slow it down the first time you watch.
Notice how this baby plants their chin, opens wide, and then comes forward so the nipple can enter their mouth and sucking can begin.
And the most amazing part? This brand-new baby is doing almost the whole process on their own.
No stroking the nipple
No compressing the breast or chest
No shoving the nipple into the baby’s mouth
This parent simply let the gaping reflex do its job, and only stepped in at the very end with a gentle assist.
You don’t have to make or teach a baby to open wide to latch. In fact, you couldn’t even if you wanted to.
What you can do is cue your baby’s reflexes in the right order — and then let them do the important work they were designed to do. And they will.
Next, let’s break this process down step-by-step so you can practice it with your own baby.
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You can find longer videos of parents navigating latching and feeding challenges in real time inside the Expanded Access Library.
Step-By-Step to Getting Your Baby to Open Wide
Now that you understand the big picture of what opening wide looks like, let’s break it down step-by-step so you can see how the reflexes work together — and practice with your baby.
Step 1: Chin First, Not Lips Baby is positioned so that their chin makes contact without the nippleprematurelytouching the lips.
Step 2: Baby Opens Mouth Within a few seconds, your baby (especially a newborn) will usually start to respond to the chin cue and begin to open their mouth.
Step 1: Chin First, Not Lips Baby is positioned so that their chin makes contact without the nipple prematurely touching the lips.
Step 2: Baby Opens Mouth Within a few seconds, your baby (especially a newborn) will usually start to respond to the chin cue and begin to open their mouth.
Step 3: Baby Opens Wider With the nipple out of the way, the baby keeps opening until their mouth is as wide as a yawn.
Step 4: Sucking is Cued Once the baby has opened wide, the nipple enters the mouth, triggering the sucking reflex so they close down and begin to feed.
Step 5: Mouth Stays Wide Because the baby closed down around more tissue, their mouth stays wide and supported during feeding.
Step 4: Sucking is Cued Once the baby has opened wide, the nipple enters the mouth, triggering the sucking reflex so they close down and begin to feed.
Step 5: Mouth Stays Wide Because the baby closed down around more tissue, their mouth stays wide and supported during feeding.
Step 6: Latch Feels Good. Now the baby has a deep, comfortable latch — and feeding feels better for everyone.
This is the sequence that transforms a narrow, pinchy latch into a wide, comfortable one.
And while everything looks simple in pictures, in real life, babies bring their own moods and quirks, which can make things trickier when you are doing it in real time.
In the next section, we’ll talk about common challenges and a few key things to keep in mind before you start practicing chin-first positioning with your baby.
Setting the Stage for Open Wide Success
Helping your baby open wide for breastfeeding goes best when you set the stage first — especially when you’re trying something new.
The steps themselves are simple — chin contact before the nipple — but there are lots of little things that can make this seemingly easy shift harder than it looks.
Here are a few quick suggestions that often make things easier:
Pick a calm moment. Practice when you and your baby are relaxed, not in the middle of a 3 a.m. meltdown.
Bring baby to you. Make sure you’re bringing your baby to your body — not trying to push your nipple into their mouth.
Look for progress. The goal is wider. More open is progress — it doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try. It will get better with practice.
Keep it short. A minute or two of practice is enough. If your baby gets upset, pause, soothe, and try again later.
And now it’s time to try this with your own baby. You really can’t do it wrong — you’re simply learning what works best for both of you.
Next, let’s talk about what to do if opening wide is still hard — and the common challenges parents run into when practicing chin-first positioning.
The Next Steps to a Better Latch
Most of the time, helping your baby open wide really does come down to that one simple shift — chin first, then lips. When you see your baby gape and then come forward, the latch feels different right away: wider, more comfortable, and so much less stressful.
It truly can feel like an immediate change.
If that happens for you, celebrate it — you found what makes latching work better for your baby and your body.
And if it doesn’t happen quite like that yet, that’s OK too. Every step in the right direction is progress. Some babies and some bodies are simply trickier than others, and that has nothing to do with you doing anything wrong.
Sometimes there are underlying reasons why a baby or newborn struggles to open wide — or stay open — while latching.
In the next blog in this series, we’ll walk through those possibilities together so you’ll know what to look for and how to get the answers you need.
Ready for the Next Step?
Positioning is often enough to unlock a wide-open latch — but sometimes babies still struggle.
Want to actually see parents working through latch challenges in real time? You’ll find in-depth resources and latch coaching videos inside the Expanded Library đź”’.
Frequently Asked Latching Questions
If your baby isn’t opening their mouth wide to latch, it’s usually not because they can’t — it’s because the wrong reflex is being cued. Touching the lips tells them to suck, not to open wide. The fix: bring your baby in chin-first. That chin cue triggers the gape reflex and helps them open wider right away.
The best position is the one that makes chin-first contact possible. Cradle, cross-cradle, laid-back, or football can all work — the real key is making sure your baby’s chin touches first so they open wide before sucking begins.
Here’s a YouTube video where I explain positioning, including my favorite for teaching babies to open wide.
If your baby won’t open wide even after you’ve planted their chin, don’t panic. It usually means one reflex is out of sync. This is common and often easy to fix. This blog explains the most common reasons babies don’t gape wide, and what you can try next.
If your baby gets upset when you practice, you’re not alone. It’s about timing, not failure. Most babies struggle if you try when they’re already hungry or worked up.
Pick a calm window. Try after a nap or small snack feed.
Keep it short. Even one minute of practice is progress.
Reset if needed. Pause to soothe, then try again later.
Follow their lead. If it feels like too much, skip and come back next feed.
With more practice in calm moments, it usually feels easier. And if every attempt ends in tears, that’s a good time to get another set of eyes on a feed — sometimes one small tweak makes all the difference.
I’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts, questions, or experiences below.
Meet the Author.Â
Hi there! I’m an IBCLC and educator with over twenty-five years of experience supporting families.
I built this space to share the kind of guidance I wish I had as a new parent—answers grounded in real-world experience, not guesswork. The kind that reflect real babies, real bodies, and the real challenges that don’t always fit the textbook.Â
Because when you understand why something is happening, it’s so much easier to feel confident about what to do next.
