Yes breastfeeding is the best, yet there comes a time in a mother’s life when you’d need to bottle-feed baby.
It may be because you have decided to stop breastfeeding baby completely, baby has stopped sucking your breast or you are ready to return to work force. The question then is what is the best way to introduce your baby to bottle from breast?
While some babies will reject bottle completely and accept cup and spoon, some will accept anything that has teats, others will accept both bottle and cup as long as they get fed.
1. Start Early
And there’s no harm in introducing bottle feeding early on even if you intend to breastfeed your baby exclusively, If you returning to the work force, some weeks before you return, start bottle feeding your baby. It will be easy for your baby to adjust when the time comes if you express a small amount of breast milk into the bottle and feed her with it. Do this after your baby has been breastfed, so that she won’t be frustrated and hungry. Experts advice that it is better to wait until your baby is at least a month old and breastfeeding is well established before introducing a bottle.
2. Experiment with different teats
When buying bottles, buy ones with different teats, the reason your baby does not like the bottle might be because the teat is wrong. Some infants may be flooded with milk if you use a regular nipple, if your baby chokes when you are bottle feeding him, then change his nipple. There are a variety of nipples so you may need to experiment a bit to find which ones work well for your baby. If one doesn’t work, try another.
3. Ask for help
Your baby has associated mum with milk from an early age, therefore if you are not offering her breast, she might not be ready to be bottle fed by you. If she is used to your breast, you offering her a bottle will only confuse her, so if you get someone else to feed her with a bottle she might be willing to suck. Ask your husband, neighbour, or relative to try and feed your baby with bottle to see if they will suck.
4. Leave the vicinity
Your child can smell you and your breast milk if you are in the same room with her, so if you want someone else to bottle feed her successfully, you might have to leave the house for a while.
5. Give them a sample
Your baby is not used to feeding from the bottle, so the idea is new to him, when pumping milk into a bottle put a little of it on your baby’s lips so she can can be convinced it’s the same breast milk in a different container. When she’s tastes it and see that it’s the same substance she can be encouraged to take more of it.
6. Watch for reaction
If your child is having a hard time feeding with bottle, he might be fussing and showing other signs which shows he’s frustrated. This is your cue to try again another time and breastfeed her, if you keep at it, she might associate this new method of feeding with bad feelings which may make her stop feeding totally, which is a bad sign. When you notice he’s frustrated, try again another time with a different nipple.
These steps are for you if you intend to be breastfeeding and bottle feeding at the same time, if you want to wean your baby permanently you need to give her a little more time, you cannot just up and say you are done breastfeeding her. The message will not be passed to your body quickly which means your breasts will continue to produce milk. And if that happens you can expect painful engorgement and possible mastitis also. Therefore, if you want to wean your baby, plan ahead and take steps towards weaning baby.
Helpful? Mamalettes how else do you introduce bottle-feeding to your baby? Share your experience! Visit our forum or post your comment below.
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