Baby-led Bottle Feeding

Baby-led Bottle Feeding

Unlike breastfeeding, we’ve all seen bottle feeding , and we all know how to do it. We’ve been surrounded by it growing up. If someone handed you a baby and a bottle you would know what to do right? Of course you would, but would you know how to do it without causing a stressful feeding? Despite the large number of parents who use bottles in today’s society (whether those bottles contain breastmilk or formula), there are very few who have actually been taught how to bottle feed their baby in a manner that is respectful of the baby’s airway and natural feeding rhythm.

Bottle feeding may seem like a strange topic for a lactation consultant to be blogging about, but I feel it’s an important one. Conventional bottle feeding methods can cause problems for both breastfed and bottle fed babies, and all babies deserve to be fed in a respectful manner. By BABY BOTTLES feeding, I mean the method of bottle feeding that most of us are used to, which is baby more or less on his back, and the bottle being tipped up to ensure there are no air bubbles.

This baby is being overwhelmed with milk and is showing clear stress signs.

I often hear from moms who are afraid that they aren’t producing enough milk because their baby will gulp down a baby feeding bottle after breastfeeding. It’s important for parents to understand that with conventional bottle feeding methods, babies have no choice but to gulp down everything in their bottle in order to protect their airway. If you hold a bottle upside down (even one with a slow flow nipple), it drips. When a baby being given a bottle swallows, the negative pressure created draws more milk into the baby’s mouth, meaning the baby has to swallow again to avoid choking. This is stressful for the baby, and babies will often display stress cues such as splayed fingers or toes, milk running out of the corner of the baby’s mouth, trying to turn their head away, or trying to push the bottle away.

It’s not normal for babies to gulp down their entire feeding in a few minutes. When you watch a baby breastfeeding, you see that they drink for a while then take a little break before drinking again (with the exception perhaps of oversupply/forceful let down, which is a different situation). Breastfeeding is the biological norm for infant feeding. This means that with any other feeding method used, care should be taken to mimic breastfeeding as much as possible. I have seen conventional bottle feeding methods lead to overfeeding, spitting up, reflux, wheezing and difficulty breathing while feeding, and even feeding refusal (due to feeding being so stressful). Bottles being given to a breastfed baby can also cause problems with breastfeeding. Babies suck differently from a bottle than they do at the breast, and babies can become accustomed to the faster flow of milk from a Baby Bottles , causing them to become impatient at the breast.

I will introduce some tips that can help to minimize some of the problems associated with bottle feeding next time.