recommendations for bottles that mimic nipples for a baby that won't latch on?

[BigKatie]

I'm a first time mum with a nine day old baby who just will not latch on. A few days ago a breastfeeding consultant at our local hospital said she thinks his tongue might be a bit weak (she said sometimes caesarean babies tongues can be weakened by being pulled out, instead of pushed) and recommended bottle feeding for 24 hours to get his tongue down in his mouth and then transition to using a nipple shield to begin with. Since then we've been snowed in and no one has been to see us for a few days because of the weather. The nipple shields have not worked at all for him. However he's still opening his mouth and trying, and he's been on the boob for a few seconds and looked like he was trying to suckle but it didn't feel very successful. He gets so frustrated bless him and after trying for a few minutes we're having to bottle feed expressed milk to him, but I'm still hoping we can get him latched on (I HATE expressing).

I wondered if anyone could recommend a bottle that mimics the nipple? I'm hoping we can minimise any nipple / teat confusion until the weather settles a bit and we can regularly go to the breastfeeding classes. I've googled around and seen a bottle called breastflow - but the reviews are mainly by people who want to get their babies off the boob rather than on to it.

Any advice or recommendations? Thanks!

I tried my 7 week old with a breastflow bottle today he had refused to take any ebm from the tommee tippee closer to nature bottle but this one went down a storm. I think it is quite probably an individual baby thing. Bought from Amazon but beware of SLOW delivery cos of snow. I'm not sure which shops sell them.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to offer you some good advice on getting bf going well with your LO. I don't feel very qualified to do this with only 7 weeks of bf under my belt . But I wish you the best of luck in getting it sorted, well done in persevering!

We used breastflow on the advice of a BFC - the baby has to maintain a similar latch to BFing, so there is less chance of nipple confusion etc. We had exactly the same problem as you, DS wouldn't latch.

IIRC we got ours in Mothercare.

Persevere with trying to get him latched on, what we found helpful was him having a little milk from a cup and then me trying to latch him on - he got less frustrated because he wasn't so hungry.

Good luck, it is bloody hard work but so so worth it once you crack it. I BF'd DS until he was 2 :)

I use breastflow bottles too and think they are quite similar to breastfeeding as the milk doesn't just flow out, they really have to work for it.

breastflow bottles are on sale in most tkmaxxs i have gone into recently- £4 for 4! HTH

I use breastflow too, and I tried one out myself to see if they're really different to normal teats. They definately are - you have to have your tongue under the teat and squeeze to get liquid, you get very little reward for just sucking

Mothercare sell them, thou I think they were £5 ish, not 4 for £4!

yes I got 4 big Breastflow bottles in TKMaxx recently for £5 - they are £5.49 for a single small one in mother care!

If by any slim chance you're on the Wirral you can have them, DD won't take a bottle.

We bought some from Mothercare yesterday £15 for 3 . My little girl is 6 weeks old and unfortunately is now on a bottle, due to antibiotics unsettling her. I tried these, as every bottle I have tried she seems to struggle with the flow and the nipple and this is resulting in poor little one having a sore chin

Have to say love the concept of these bottles, they do look quite weird when the teat collapses (but apparently normal) as it mimics your breast. My big problem is they LEAK. Mine are leaking from where the 2 teats meet the ring. Anyone else had problems like this? I was so annoyed this morning, I have sent Breastflow an email.

But on research I have found that people have said they can easily go from breast to bottle very easily on these bottles, and when you use them its easy to see why.

If someone can tell me maybe just a faulty bottle, I may consider getting some more from tkmaxx though

We used (still use) Tomee Tippee closer to nature with a slow flow teat and haven't had any problems with nipple confusion. I think the key thing is to use a slow flow teat so that baby has to work for the milk rather than it being too easy. Baby has also been fed with syringe, syringe and fingers, baby cup, bottles (two types, 3 types of teats) - it seems that as long as it was wet, she'd drink it.

bigkatie we had similiar issues at the start (EMCS, baby not latching for ages, Tongue tie etc) - have they checked for tongue tie? It can affect how they latch, how tired it can make them while feeding even if latch looks out, how well they can get milk out etc, as was the situation in our case. Worth checking once they get out to you - hopefully they will soon, this snow is awful isn't it?

Congrats on your new baby :)

sorry, should have read "even if latch looks ok"

I wouldnt panic too much about nipple confusion - my MW and HV have both told me that there isnt actually any research to prove that it even exists, its all anecdotal.

My DS has had expressed milk from a tommee tippee and avent bottle since he was a week old, and hes had a dummy from the day he was born, and I've had no trouble getting him to feed from me afterwards...

PS I've also seen it suggested (on here!) that nipple confusion was invented by some of the more extreme breast feeding organisations (the ones that dont like dummies), to discourage anything but full blown BF...

Not me saying this btw, I was told it :)

nuk bottles worked best for us.

The trouble is the tongue action for breastfeeding is different for the tongue action for bottle feeding and some babies find it difficult to swap between the two (bf to bottle and vice versa).

Bfing is a peristaltic action (wave-like) to extract milk from the breast that carries on through the digestive tract (non-bf babies/children and adults have peristaltic digestive movement but only from the oesophagus down). Bottle feeding uses a 'piston' type (back and forth) movement of the tongue to extract milk from a bottle teat.

Although of course some of the new 'novel' bottle teats like breastflow/haberman/calma may use a bfing or a traditional bottlefeeding or indeed a different type of tongue movement altogether - AFAIK no studies have been carried out into what type of tongue movement is needed to drink from these teats - I am willing to be corrected though

I would try expressing into a little cup, size of a bottle lid, and try to get baby to take little sips so baby is not so hungry and therefore less upset.
Expressing will also ease you/ your breasts when extremely full. (I had trouble feeding mine when I was very full and would get into that cycle)
Then keep trying with natural latching on when not so full.
Good luck x

ps your midwife's idea about tongues & the way babies are born sounds iffy to me

see a QUALIFIED lactation consultant

Thanks for advice - about 20 people have checked to see whether he has a tongue tie so if that is the problem I'd be very surprised!

We were using a cup but apparently the sipping action isn't helpful in the long run and learning to suck a bottle is apparently better we've been told - even if it's not exactly the same as the nipple. We can probably make it to mothercare so we might try the bottle then and see if it gets him a bit more clued up. Finding it really hard at the moment so it's lovely to hear about someone having the same problem and getting it cracked. x

Breastflow bottles 3 for £8.99 in my local TK Maxx.