Many babies are normally quite alert for an hour or so, and then they will often drift off into a deep, long sleep for several hours. It is usually the priority of the caregiver to ensure that the baby has a feed (if the baby and mother are well) at sometime within the first hour after being born. If there are complications for the mother or baby, this first feed may need to be delayed. If breastfeeding, the baby will not be given a bottle unless many hours have passed and the baby is hungry, with a breastfeed still not being possible.
It can take a baby from 5 to 50 minutes to become interested in feeding. It often takes them a while to adjust to being outside the uterus and many will happily look around for 20 to 40 minutes or so, before showing interest. Despite the myth that the baby will 'go straight to the breast' as soon as they are born, not many will attempt to feed this soon.
When the baby is interested, they will often start opening and closing their mouth - trying to latch onto something, or anything! This is called the '
rooting reflex' and is an inbuilt survival response that helps them to search out nourishment. You may wish to read more in the
first breastfeed or
first bottle feed.