Bottle Feeding a Baby 

Shifting from Breast feed to bottle feeding baby? Confused how to pick the bottle? Agonized of baby not accepting the feeding bottle? Baby getting more frustrated and cranky while pushing for bottle? Breast fed baby won’t take a bottle?

Well from my own experiences, most of the mom’s of breast fed babies face these situations. It actually is not at all easy completely or partially shifting the baby to bottle. After all, he will not get the coziness of his “MOM”.

Baby’s are better managers moms, they can easily take you for a ride. So don’t target your self or your capabilities. You are the best mom so let’s deal with kids in a more smarter manner here.

Looking for how to wean toddler from Milk bottle?

[“I personally took almost 20-25days to start my 4month baby with 2-3 ounces of milk by bottle. It was a painful task for me, with my baby rejecting 3 bottles, before he loved the 4th one (Pigeon) with mimicked nipples! So, stay Calm, continue your efforts, some may opt soon, while some babies may give you a long and tiring run”.]

Tips to Bottle feed a Breast Fed baby :

1. Familiarity :

Familiarity with the nipple will help you fine tune your baby. Let your baby play with the bottle and chew on the nipple. Don’t get frustrated with this act. It is pulling you a step closer to achieve your intentions.

2. Right Person :

If Mom is there, I’am bound to relax, don’t we feel so? Same is with these intelligent chaps! If mom is around they will never want to go away and opt for bottle feed, even if the bottle has breast milk. This time Moms, YOU are not the right person here to start them with bottle feed.They want the mothers warmth and love while feeding. So if you plan to start bottle feed, give chance to dad/granny/caretaker and you stroll having some good time for yourself. (Baby can sense your smell even if in another room). They’ll pull out momma’s from anywhere:)

3. Right time :

Timing will play a very important role. Don’t try to give them bottle after their tummy is full. They’ll never take it as an object to fill their tummy. And also don’t stretch their hunger pangs a lot to force them take bottle. Opt for a mediocre approach, let them feel hungry and then ask the “Right Person” to try bottle feeding.

4. Taste:

Sometimes babies don’t like the taste of formula feed after they had enough of breast milk.  Try if you can start bottle feed by pumping your own milk in bottle, so that he doesn’t have to deal with two changes simultaneously. And once he starts accepting, slowly it can be replaced with formula feed. Sometimes baby’s even fall for proper Milk temperature. Since Breastmilk is slightly warm (room temperature), baby’s would not love to opt for Cold or extra hot milk. Try keeping nearly same temperature while bottle feeding baby.

5. Cheer the new achievement :

Yes, they too feel happy when applauded. So become cheer leaders for them when starting bottle feed. After all, their tags is going to be changed from “Breast fed baby to Bottle feeding baby”.

6.Change bottles:

If nothing seems to work out for 7-8days, try changing Nipples or Bottles. Properly research the bottles which try to be close to mom’s teats. Sometimes, one bottle might not work, while another one would help you out in first hit. But don’t change in 1-2 days, try a bottle and give enough chance to baby to adopt it.

Like every thing has some positive and negative points, Bottle feeding baby also has both sides of the coin! So adopt a proper approach & be aware of all the impacts!

Benefits of Bottle Feeding a baby:

1. Convenience :

My kid almost left no place to feed Breast milk, be it shop or while flying or in train, Bus, car, auto, name anything and I would sigh a big YES, somewhat happily and somewhat in pain! And I would vouch on this biggest advantage of Bottle feeding. You are free from any embarrassment or discomfort. Just pull out a bottle and your baby is happy to full his tummy:)

2. Less Breast Milk:

I’ve seen many of my friends who had to sought to Bottle feeding due to insufficient production of their own Milk. That’s completely fine moms, Formula milk and Bottles are God sent for you.  Caution :Do not read “cons”mentioned below (those are to pull up moms who can Breast feed their baby but just aren’t doing so due to their own reasons)!

3. Measured Intake:

Being an analytical person, I love measuring everything:) And so it goes here, Mom’s are really inquisitive of “How much did my baby eat”. Bottle feeding answers this question as you know how much your baby took the feed. Caution: Just don’t overdo the feed, as babies love sucking bottle nipples and easily gulp down lots of milk which might cause them discomfort or even make get them colic and gassy later on.

Points to remember while Bottle feeding a baby :

• Ensuring the hygiene of the bottle is indeed tedious. If someone says, its not at all difficult, he/she would have never done that for sure;). It  needs to be cleaned and sterilized in Bottle sterilizer or Hot water after every feed (even if the baby sips just 1-2ounce, to your despair)…Involves extra work load for you moms!
• You will have to replace bottles/nipples at regular intervals. Keep on measuring the health of Bottle nipples for safet. Any wear and tear if seen, needs an immediate change. Definitely its an added expense.
• Formula feed (definitely via bottles) creates indigestion (coz the sucking movement while bottle feeding involves air ingestion) & constipation issues in babies. So try to limit Formula feed unless you have breast milk issues. Sharing one of my friend’s experience –

 [“One of my friend who fed the baby completely on Formula, was every day exposed to constipation when her baby was 3-4months. These issues continued till the baby was 3years old! It was a horrific torture to see the baby crying and getting frightened. He was in deep pain while trying to do potty!It also delayed her Potty  training.”]

That would definitely not be the case with all formula fed babies, but then many formula fed baby’s face these issues.

• No Formula milk can compete with Breast milk for 6 months when it comes to nutrition and developing immunity in babies(as it has antibodies to fight infection and allergies). Even the packaging of Formula milk says that “Breast milk is the best for babies till6 months:)”, Think why would they do so?
•  Travelling? Well you’ll have an extra bag to carry 5-6 bottles, formula packs to take along! An added    luggage of prime importance:)

Striking a balance between Breast and Bottle Feeding baby:

Wanna go out for a Dinner? Wish to have some quiet time for yourself? Planning to go back to work for some flexible hours? Wanna get extra stress of full time BF the baby? If it stands true for you, then the best effective recipe isn”Striking a balance between Breast and Formula Milk”.

If the baby accepts the bottle, start feeding baby once a day by the bottle.

Don’t get into the trap of nursing 3-4 times a day with formula as this will certainly heavy up the breasts if not emptied and slowly will result in lesser milk production. This will even prompt your baby to detach from Breast feeding and completely switch to Formula feeding, which wasn’t your intention, right moms!

Moms, let daddies get the happiness of feeding the child! Shower them the privilege of bonding with baby while making him/her bottle feed. It is all the more important to keep the confusion away from the baby wrt Breast feeding and Bottle feeding. Again don’t overdo the formula feed as baby will not easily go for Breast feeding then and might refuse it altogether!

Can Cup feeding be an alternate?

Yes indeed! My mum-inlaw always insisted to start glass or cup feeding and avoid bottle feeding.

And it is no different in the tactics than bottle feed. It can be messy though, you will never have the pain of moving baby from Breast feed to Bottle and from Bottle to Cup feed.

Confused how select the Bottle amongst the numerous ranges available? Check out 5 Tips to choose right bottle for a baby.

Happy feeding Mama’s!!