Avent teat size query

[kiwicath]

My little 3.5 week old is so sleepy at his 10.30pm feed that he's not getting enough to get him through to his next feed. Have tried him on expressed milk from a bottle so I can tell exactly how much he's taking but he's getting such a shock, gagging and seems to gulp constantly taking in loads of air and very little milk. The avent teat says "1" on it and it has only the one hole. Is this the correct size for such a little baby or is there one expecially for newborns with yet a smaller hole?? He's a lazy little fella and I'm worried that if he does get the hang of it, he'll prefer that to boob - is this unfounded? Any advice?

I thought that 1 was the smallest teat Avent did. As far as i know '1' is their newborn teat. Will double check that for you though.

Here is a link the Avent page . There is a table at the bottom giving info on the correct teat size for your baby, it would appear that you are using the right size for your DS.

Cheers WSM. 10.45pm in my neck of the woods so going to try again with the bottle. Night.

Nighty night and good luck !

The problem could be that your DS is finding it harder with a bottle as he can control the flow when feeding from the breast. With a bottle he is not really in control of the flow and so the milk just keeps trickling out when he isn't ready for the next mouthful, IYSWIM.

is he actually getting any milk? most people including some midwives say that the size 1 are pretty useless and reccomend size 2, i certainly used 2 and then vari flo for both of mine from birth. I would have thought if the teat was too big he would actually be gulping on the milk. Does that make sense?

Breastfed babies should be feeding on demand, are you spacing out feeds like you have to with formula? Breast milk is digested far quicker as is not so heavy so babies need far more frequent feed. It may be better to wait until 6 weeks to express when your breastfeeding is fully established.

kiwicath, mine hated newborn avent teats as well - they were much too fast for him and I think also the avent teats themselves are quite hard and difficult to manipulate. I experimented with masses of different bottles and the only ones he could manage at that age were the tommee tippee newborn teats (wide neck ones were OK but he preferred the traditional shape). These are much softer silicon and slower flow. After a few weeks of this we moved onto Tommee Tippee widenecked variflow and he has been on them ever since (now 19 weeks).
It was a pain because my other 2 were fine on avent and I have masses of bottles and teats but he has just never managed with them. Hope that helps - good luck!

kiwicath, mine hated newborn avent teats as well - they were much too fast for him and I think also the avent teats themselves are quite hard and difficult to manipulate. I experimented with masses of different bottles and the only ones he could manage at that age were the tommee tippee newborn teats (wide neck ones were OK but he preferred the traditional shape). These are much softer silicon and slower flow. After a few weeks of this we moved onto Tommee Tippee widenecked variflow and he has been on them ever since (now 19 weeks).
It was a pain because my other 2 were fine on avent and I have masses of bottles and teats but he has just never managed with them. Hope that helps - good luck!

Thanks guys. He managed much better last night. Expressed 3oz which he took quite happily then gave him the rest of the boob for pudding. Hercules - yes, demand feeding ish but going into surgery in about a months time (op 3-4 hours) so need him to get a handle on the whole bottle feeding thing - otherwise would not be stressing about it till much later.