Why is so much of the selling point of teats for bottles...

[hunkermunker]

..that the baby can switch from breast to bottlefeeding and back again?

I'm uneasy with it and I don't quite know why. I think it's because so many babies who are bottlefed aren't breastfed at all.

I can understand why they'd want to sell teats that mean the baby uses a breastfeeding-type action to get the milk, but I think to say "your baby will effortlessly switch between breast and bottlefeeding if you use this teat" is shit, misleading and wrong.

I agree.

(I find those bottles shaped like breasts truly bizarre though.)

But having said that, switching worked for me from Week one with DS. I realize I was very green and ill-informed about breastfeeding now but at the time was thankful he fed from the breast, with and without those silicone nipple shields, and the bottle.

It certainly doesn't work for many though so is misleading.

Message withdrawn

Well, we always seem to have loads of posts on here from people who are desperately trying to get their bf baby to try a bottle. I bet those people buy lots of teats. And then once they find a teat that works, they're on that system. (And if it's, say, the Playtex system, then they have to buy bags, too!)

My dd has both breast and bottle feeds and we have been using those bottles shaped like breasts (Tommee Tippee closer to nature) and she has been managing really well at switching from breast to bottle so I have to put in a good word for them.

We used the avent teats and DS had no problem bf and having one bottle of ebm a day. Don't know if this was because the teats are like nipples (I would be odd if mine were that shape...), or whether we just introduced it quite early, and he never knew anything else. Personally, I think the latter.

Advertisers, it seems to me, will say anything to get you to buy their product above anyone else's.. maybe this is what makes you a bit uncomfortable - they are trying to make money out of something so close to your heart, and to hook people in they go for the jugular, so to speak.

clairemow I agree with you there. It does seem a bit like advertisers think "How shall we get vulnerable new mums to buy this? Oh lets really get to them by making it seem like they don't want what's best for baby if they don't buy our product." Some parenting magazi8nes are a bit like this too becausethey are so heavily supported by advertising. it makes me feel sorry for mums who haven't got much cash and feel that they need to buy everything that's mentioned.

Exactly La-di-da-di. What I think is even worse is how some companies give away formula in the developing world, and once the baby and mum are hooked, they then ask them to start paying. A whole other thread though perhaps - bit off the point of this one.

they say these things to strike an emotional chord as anything concerning food and baby has a visceral response in us.

the flavour of the month is "to let your dp/dh 'help out' by giving a bottle of ebm at night so you can get some rest"

having said that, my friend had pre-term twins and her son struggled to latch while her daughter took to bf like duck to water. the girl also took an Avent teat (hard silicone rubbish) with little effort before she would have been term. Poor little lad struggled with it. I gave my friend some MAM Ultivent teats and her son took to it from the first attempt. (I fed him that time but would have preferred wetnursing him! ) So yes, I think some teats are 'better' because they simulate a human nipple more than others.

I understand that switching does work for some babies. DS1 used to have a couple of bottles when I was at work one day and one evening a week from when he was 6mo. Then he sometimes used to shake my boob when he was feeding like he was trying to see how much milk was in it, as he apparently did with his bottle...!

But my point really is that the companies who make the bottles KNOW damn well that MOST babies in this country won't be switching from breast to bottle and back again - they'll be bottlefed either from birth, near to birth or a few months old. So WHY the fascination with saying "it makes it easy to switch" - it's disingenuous, IMO.