How do you know which teat speed for BF baby?

[abigboydidit]

Hi, currently trying to introduce an occasional bottle of EBM to DD. After several failed attempts she happily took a full feed from a TT Closer to Nature bottle with a slow flow teat this morning. She has refused bottles in the past as the milk seemed to come out too quickly for her and made her gag and retch but she did seem to be sucking very hard on this bottle and her cheeks were quite red (similar to after a BF) once she had finished. Am afraid DS refused bottles so I have no idea what's normal and just wanted to check how you know what teat speed to use. Sorry to be asking what is probably a very silly question

Sorry - I meant to add DD 15 weeks and I notice the leaflet in the box says medium flow teats for 3month+?

I would (and did) always use a slow flow/newborn teat for a breastfed baby. BF babies have to work harder at the breast and I felt that by keeping the test slow flow it was less likely she'd favour the ease of a bottle.

Ah, thanks. Am now wondering if that was why she went off the bottles in the first place as she was taking an Avent bottle with a newborn teat but never seemed happy with the 1 month + ones. I was just a bit worried that I was making her work too hard!

DS1 only rarely had a bottle, but had a few around 11mo. At that stage it was taking him a long time to have not very much. We tried him with the CTN variflow (he had been using the CTN newborn ones) and that seemed to work a bit better. However, I do have a very fast letdown so between that, his age, and the fact he was only occasionally having bottles anyway, I wasn't worried about him developing a bottle preference. If she is happy with the slow flow, I can't see what the harm is in sticking with that?

Thanks. I do have a fast letdown but oddly it was when I moved up from the newborn Avent teat to the 1 month + that she started taking forever to drink a tiny amount. This morning she was drawing really hard but totally walloped it down

My nearly 7 month old (currently very slowly weaning from breast to formula) is on Avent 1 month+ slow flow teats. When he's solely on bottles I might try him on the 3 month + medium flow ones but when we tried those when he was 3 months old he spluttered like mad so they quickly went.

Generally I think breast fed babies are happier on slow flow teats, even though they have to work quite hard for the milk.