diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 8ed3b0fbff..0d98c4646c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ Install the current version of ipywidgets using pip or conda.
 
 ```
 pip install ipywidgets
-jupyter nbextension enable --py --sys-prefix widgetsnbextension
+jupyter nbextension enable --py --sys-prefix widgetsnbextension  # can be skipped for notebook version 5.3 and above
 ```
 
 - With conda:
diff --git a/widgetsnbextension/setup.py b/widgetsnbextension/setup.py
index b632a9a472..fa33da9642 100644
--- a/widgetsnbextension/setup.py
+++ b/widgetsnbextension/setup.py
@@ -205,6 +205,7 @@ def run(self):
                 'widgetsnbextension/static/extension.js',
                 'widgetsnbextension/static/extension.js.map'
         ]),
+        ('etc/jupyter/nbconfig/notebook.d/' , ['widgetsnbextension.json'])
     ],
     zip_safe=False,
     include_package_data = True,
diff --git a/widgetsnbextension/widgetsnbextension.json b/widgetsnbextension/widgetsnbextension.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7a17570d6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/widgetsnbextension/widgetsnbextension.json
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+{
+  "load_extensions": {
+    "jupyter-js-widgets/extension": true
+  }
+}