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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Idiot's guide to bottle feeding please!

4 replies

Etherealhedgehog · 25/04/2021 18:19

I'm going back to work in a couple of months and would like to start weaning DD (7 months and currently EBF) on to formula for daytime feeds. She's a bit of a bottle refuser but we supplemented when she was small and once in a blue moon she'll drink a bit from one now, so I know she can.

I've read lots of tips for bottle refusal but feel like a need a more basic 'bottle feeding 101' to make sure we're maximising our chances of success. For example, one thread I read mentioned not screwing the lid on completely tight as this creates a vacuum, making it harder to get the milk out. Is that a thing? Are there other tips like that I should know? The two types that she currently seems to hate least are Mam and Lansinoh but I feel like neither is quite right - Mam the milk seems to pour out of, practically no sucking required and Lansinoh it sometimes seems hard to get much at all - both on size 2 teats. Any tips on what we might be doing wrong? She'll happily put the bottle in her mouth but it then seems like she's just mouthing it and doesn't get much out so I wonder if she'd be more inclined to actually feed properly if we were making it easier for her...

OP posts:
WetJan · 25/04/2021 18:33

What age will she be when you go back to work? How many hours will you be doing?
I went back when DD was a year and she never used a bottle, we fed in the morning and after nursery. My sister did the same with hers (x3) and she went back at 9m with each.

HappySpade · 25/04/2021 18:37

Make sure the bottle is tilted so that the tip portion is always full of formula so baby is taking in air pockets

Etherealhedgehog · 25/04/2021 18:44

She'll be 9 months and I'll be doing full-time with a 1hr commute each way (she'll be with her dad for the first three months so no nursery run to worry about yet). On previous threads I've been told that she'll be eating enough by then to not need much food in the day but we're BLW by default as she didn't like spoon-feeding (opinionated all round!) and while she loves it, not much goes down yet, so I don't feel like I can rely on that. And tbh, I would really love the freedom it would give me in the last couple of months of maternity leave if we could get her on a bottle... I think it would be really good for me and DP if each of us could get an opportunity to go hang out with friends baby-free every once in a while, but that's impossible for me right now, so I would like to give it a good go at least!

OP posts:
WetJan · 25/04/2021 21:13

Ah, fair enough then. Hopefully someone who knows what they're taking about will come on then Grin Just thought I'd check as I panicked about it when DD refused all of them.

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