When you’re trying to latch your baby—and you know that getting them to open wide is the key to a good latch—but they won’t do it? That’s frustrating.

You end up with a painful latch that’s shallower than you want it to be, and you don’t know what to do differently. And when sometimes your baby opens wide and other times they don’t open at all, it’s super confusing. You know they can, but you don’t know why they won’t. So, let’s break it down. In this blog, I want to help you understand the different reasons why your baby may not be opening wide, so you can more clearly understand how to help.

(Want to skip the why and get straight to how to help? Here's the blog for that.)

Why This Feels So Confusing

Understanding why your baby isn’t opening wide before they latch is tricky—because there are several different reasons why it might be happening. But the most important thing to know when you’re trying to figure this out is this:

They will if they can.

Opening wide (or gaping) is an innately wired skill in babies. It comes programmed at birth. You don’t have to teach your baby to open wide. You just have to get the barriers out of the way that are keeping them from being able to do it.

But first, you have to know what those barriers could be.

Barrier 1: The Right Reflex Isn’t Being Cued

I’m putting this first for two reasons. First, talking about reflexes is my favorite thing. But more importantly, this is the most common reason babies don’t open wide (or gape).

If you don’t give your baby the cue to open wide, they just don’t know they’re supposed to—so they don’t.

Most people are (lovingly) taught that during latching, the way to cue a baby to open wide is to stroke the nipple from the nose down the lips. The idea is that they’ll open wide and then you can place your nipple in their mouth.

The problem is that doesn’t actually cue a baby to open wide. It cues a baby to suck. And sucking is the opposite of opening wide.

If you were taught that, that could be the missing link.

The cue to gape actually comes from contact with the chin—not the lips, or anything between the lips and the nose. The chin. Just the chin.

If you’re already making sure their chin is planted first, then let’s talk about the next thing that can prevent a baby from gaping: how you’re holding them while trying to latch.

Barrier 2: Positioning Is Blocking Them

And just to clarify, I’m not talking about which hold—like cradle or football—because all holds can allow a baby to get a wide gape if they’re used in a supportive way.

There’s no right or elusive hold you haven’t figured out yet that magically makes things work. Your baby's reflexes are the magic to making things work.

And where you put your hands on your baby's body when they are latching (in any position) is the key as to how well they are able to use those reflexes.

Latching isn’t a single step. It’s a sequence of small steps, where each one builds on the one before it. You can think of the latching process like a cascade of waterfalls, all flowing toward that final moment of latching on.

Your baby opening wide isn't the first step or last step in that cascade. It's one that comes in the middle.

So, if the step before the gape is blocked, then opening wide will be blocked too.

The step that comes before opening wide—and sets the stage for it—is gently extending the head back.

(That’s also what causes the chin to connect... but that’s another post.)

If your hands are behind your baby’s head instead of at the base of their shoulders, you might accidentally be blocking this process, and that can prevent them from being able to gape.

Related Blog Post: 3 Sneaky Things That Cause a Shallow Latch

The good news? Helping your baby position themselves to use their reflexes during latching is generally easy to do—once you understand what their brain needs to make it all work.

Barrier 3: Timing

Timing is probably the biggest thing about latching that nobody teaches about.

When you’re still figuring it all out—and your baby is in that can’t-quite-do-it-all-yet phase—the timing of when they open their mouth and when you help your nipple go in is everything.

It’s also one of the hardest parts.

Because of course you want to help. That’s what parents do.

But your baby’s brain is still connecting to their muscles, and they need a little bit of time to receive the cue to open wide—and then respond.

If you’re putting your nipple into their mouth as soon as they start to open, it might be that in your (understandable) desire to help, you’re just jumping the gun a bit—and not giving them the space to open fully.

What needs to happen instead is:
1. Give the cue to open wide (with the chin!)
2. Wait for them to respond and open as wide as they can
3. Then guide them onto the breast

It’s hard. But you’ll get a better result almost immediately.

And if your baby is the “zero to screamy in five seconds” type? Yeah, I’ve got more on that in the next section.

Barrier 4: Body Tension

The last big thing that can cause your baby to not open wide before latching is tension.

If the connection between body tension and opening the mouth doesn’t immediately make sense, try this: tense up your whole body and then try to open your mouth wide.

Tension causes things to shut down and stiffen—which is the exact opposite of what we need to get a good latch.

Babies can be tense for lots of reasons. And understanding why your baby is tense may be the key to helping them open wide.

Most babies aren’t tense all the time. If yours is? That’s not biologically typical—it usually means there’s something else going on underneath.

But most babies do get tense when they’re hungry. And that’s when we usually try to latch them.

The easiest way to make your baby less tense before a feed? Feed them earlier.

If you usually feed every 3 hours, try 2.5. If your baby is calmer and you have more time to wait for a good gape before they get frantic, tension may be more about timing than anything else.

(And for what it’s worth, early meals might help later in life too—you may have birthed a “hangry when hungry” human.....so keep that on your radar. From personal experience? Babies don’t lie about who they are.)

Sometimes you’ll get the timing right and everything flows—and sometimes? Well, life and bad latches happen.  But it doesn’t matter if your baby doesn’t gape in any given feed. It matters if you don’t know how to help them do it next time.

How to Help

Identifying why your baby isn’t opening their mouth is the first—and likely most important—step in helping them open wider. But it’s not the last one.

You have to remove the barrier. And sometimes, that means trying something new.

That baby book you read? It might not have been written with your baby in mind.  So if what you were told isn’t working? It’s not because you’re doing it wrong. It’s just that it’s not the right fit. Try something else.

If your baby is 3 or 4 months old and hasn’t been gaping in a while, it might take a little time for them to start again. But they can. And if they’re the type that goes from asleep to furious in five seconds, yeah—you’ve got a narrower window. It’s like trying to bring your A-game to a sport you just learned.

The good news? Getting it wrong isn’t a judgment of your parenting. It’s just a step in the process.

If you’re feeling stuck, the very next thing to do is go step-by-step through the latching process, so you can see what’s working and what you can tweak to make it easier for your baby.

Moving Forward with Confidence

Whether it's learning how to plant the chin so your baby can gape, figuring out hand placement so they can access the reflexes they were born with, or troubleshooting the more nuanced barriers when the quick fixes don’t work—it's all a learning process.

And that’s exactly what you’re doing.

You’re not doing it wrong. You just haven’t found what works for your baby yet.

Some babies take more skill to work with. Some anatomy variations require more finesse than others. But it’s all learnable.  And the fact that you’ve already identified the problem—that they’re not opening wide—means you’re already moving in the right direction.