Weaning Baby

Sometimes if you are trying to get your baby to drink milk from a bottle, they can turn into "fuss pots" and they will often reject plain bottle teats or bottle nipples. Or if your baby does drink from a bottle then they can often get lazy and not return to breastfeeding. Alot of bottle teats the milk just comes out so easily that baby learns that, and doesnt return to the breast!

So yes it can be a stressful time weaning baby.

One product that I have used myself, for a fussy baby, is the Chu Chu teat. It works the same as a mother's nipple, baby has to work to get the milk out. With my son, he rejected a lot of other teats but took to this one straight away.

You dont need to purchase special bottles, you can use all the narrow-neck bottles that you already have and the teat will fit. And there is only one teat size, so you dont need to upgrade as your child gets older.

Its not a bad price to give it a try. You can order them from our webstore: http://www.breastmates.co.nz/chu_chu_teats.html

Bottle Feeding Tip #3

A tip if you are trying to get baby to drink from a bottle.....Tip #3:

It's best to do this over a few weeks, so that your breasts can adjust to the change in demand and then not produce as much milk. If you rush this and do it too quickly, you may get very large engorged breasts, very sore. And the risk of developing mastitis.

Heat packs!!!

Bottle Feeding Tip #1

A tip if you are trying to get baby to drink from a bottle.....

Tip #1: Give them a drink of water in the bottle first. They will get to try the teat and have a bit of a play. They might even drink some water.

Its better for them to practise on water, rather than wasting a whole bottle of expressed breast milk, formula, etc!!!

Starting a Bottle

If you are expressing breast milk with a breast pump, either to relieve breast engorgement, to get baby used to taking a bottle, to share feeding with dad, or if you are going back to work, or just prefer to feed baby with a bottle, then here are my starting tips.

To get baby to drink from a bottle, let baby play with the bottle first. (When it is empty or with cold boiled water). Then they might put it in their mouth, suck a little maybe, and must be familiar with it.

If you are expressing breast milk with a breast pump, store this in the freezer. You can store it in special breast milk storage bags or you could freeze it in the icecube tray and then put the frozen cubes into a snap lock bag in the freezer.

Just defrost a small amount of milk first, like 20mLs or so. Otherwise if your baby rejects the bottle on your first attempt all that milk is not wasted. I know how much work goes into getting breast milk!!

Try it at a lunch time feed. Try your baby on the bottle before baby is really really hungry, before they start crying and wind up too much. You want to try this when baby is in a calm and happy mood.

Just nudge their lip with the bottle teat, and if they open place the teat inside. baby should then suck like on the breast. Tilt the bottle upright. You should see bubbles coming through the milk.

Yay if it works.

If baby keeps mouth shut and does not drink, try a few more times. If no luck, try again tomorrow with a small amount of milk. ALWAYS DISCARD the milk after trying. Don't reheat it.

View our breast milk storage guidelines here http://www.breastmates.co.nz/storage_guidelines.html

After baby has learned to drink from a bottle, sometimes they get lazy and will reject the bottle as they prefer to drink from mom's breast. There are some special bottles available that help to minimise "nipple confusion" and the bottle teat works the same way as a breast. If baby is rejecting all bottles, you could try a special Adiri bottle. It can also help if you get Dad to feed the baby, as if baby smells that you are around they can get very picky!

Breastfeeding and Bottle Feeding - Baby Rejecting Bottle?

I thought I would write to tell you about my favourite baby bottle at the moment. This is such a great idea!

The Adiri Natural Nurser - which is also happens to be free of BPA.

This is a BEAUTY of a baby bottle. The top quarter of the bottle is soft and squishy like a boob. The teat and bottle are all one piece, and the milk squirts out with the same action as breastfeeding. So baby's mouth has to work with the same action.

Alot of baby's get lazy after they have tried a bottle and a teat, and they don't go back to breastfeeding very easily. They work out that normal bottles are easier to suck.

But with the Adiri bottle, the natural nurser, there is less chance of baby rejecting your boob if you are doing a mix of breast feeding and bottle feeding.

The Adiri bottle is great also if baby has been rejecting other types of bottles and teats.