How to accustom the child to the bottle?
The need to give the baby food and drink from a bottle appears for various reasons, but the baby may not want to drink from it, especially if before it was breastfed only. How to successfully accustom the baby to such feeding and why is it necessary?
Why accustom?
Mom can give the child a bottle of herbal tea, water, children's fees. However, the main reason for schooling is the transition to another type of feeding - mixed or artificial. The reasons for this transition may be a shortage of milk, the output of the mother to work, the treatment of the mother, the long departure of the mother and other factors.
Possible reasons for failure
It is not surprising that a baby can refuse a bottle, because it is very different from the mother’s breast, which the infant, previously fed only by mother’s milk, is perceived as the only source of nutrition.
The child may not like:
- Smell or taste of fluid that comes from the nipple.
- The temperature of the contents of the bottle.
- The shape of the nipples. Offer your baby different options.
- The rate of flow of fluid from the nipples. Test speed and experiment.
- The position and the place where the child is. A child may be disturbed by noise or uncomfortable posture.
Or maybe the child is just not hungry or does not want to drink.
Successful transition
In order for training to be successful, it is important to be patient and to treat this process as scrupulous and focused work. To facilitate training for a bottle of an infant receiving breast milk, it is recommended to pour mother's milk into it at the first test.
If the baby refuses from the bottle, offer him different versions of the nipple - from different materials and different shapes. Perhaps one of them will like the baby. You can not put the nipple in the baby's mouth, and hold it close, so that the child became interested and took it as his mother's breast.
Offer a bottle of the mixture to a slightly starved baby. However, it is not necessary to wait for the crumb to be very hungry and require only the mother's breast.
You can also offer to feed the baby to another adult - dad, grandmother or another person. If the mixture will be offered by mom, the crumb can categorically refuse a breast substitute.
It’s great if the feeding will be carried out by the father, but the men rarely have enough patience to teach the child something, so give the baby a chance to get used to the bottle given from the hands of the grandmother or the nanny, and later the baby can be fed by the father too.
Tips
- Since milk comes from the female breast to the crumbs warm, it is also desirable to slightly warm the liquid (even water). It is also advised to warm the nipple under hot water before giving the bottle to the baby. Although, if the crumbs teeth are cut, it is preferable to give the nipple chilled.
- It is not recommended to offer it, which is less than four weeks.
- If the baby is mixed-fed and the mother does not want to deprive the baby of breast milk, it is recommended to feed her in a different place and in a different pose than during breastfeeding.
- An adult should not leave the baby alone with a bottle, especially if the baby is lying.
- If the baby categorically refuses it, give him food from a pipette (suitable for the youngest children), a spoon or a cup.
