As I’ve mentioned recently, over the last six weeks I have been weaning Lollipop onto a bottle. While she is now very happily feeding from her bottle, the journey from breast to bottle was not always a smooth one.
When Mr Moo was born, I had read a little too much about breastfeeding and was so worried about ‘nipple confusion’ that I waited too long to give him a bottle. By the time I tried it, he was a very determined little man who was very clear about what he liked and he didn’t like bottles !! We went through a very difficult period with me trying a variety of bottles and methods while Mr Moo glared at me tight-lipped and furious. Eventually, having spent a lot of time researching this issue on the web, I ordered some very unusual looking bottles called: the Adiri Natural Nurser.
This bottle is designed to resemble a mother’s breast, so that the bottle feed is almost like nursing. Its so easy to use, is soft and is BPA free so I was thrilled when Mr Moo took to it straight away. I couldn’t believe my luck. The Nurser comes in three different flow sizes and we used these bottles right up to the time when Mr Moo abandoned bottles altogether when he reached one. ( For more information about the Adiri Natural Nurser, click here.) I recommended the Nurser to lots of people with great success and thought that I would use it for all the children I might be lucky enough to have.
So there I was, MammyMcSmug, popping a Nurser into Lollipop’s mouth expecting everything to go swimmingly….well it didn’t. While she didn’t create the fuss her brother had done when a bottle was first given to him, it was obvious that she didn’t like it. The most she would take from the bottle was 1 to 2 ozs and even then she looked like she was only doing it because she was feeling sorry for me.
Having eventually succeeded with Mr Moo, I knew that the right bottle was out there, I just had to find it. My sister recommended the Haberman Special Feeder which is now called the Medela Special Feeder. She’d seen Tracy Hogg use it on an episode of The Baby Whisperer and had used it successfully with Little T.
These bottles were designed for babies with special feeding needs (like a cleft pallet or Downs Syndrome) but are also recommended for breast fed babies (for some more info on the science behind them click here.)
So I ordered some of them and Lollipop gobbled up the first 3ozs that I gave her using it (why do my children only like the odd looking bottles?). We gradually built up the amounts and once she was happily taking over 6ozs we switched to a Nuk bottle which (hurrah) looks normal and was more easy to use (the Special Feeder has a very narrow neck which made it difficult to get the scoops of formula in without serious spillage).
So I guess every child is different and although trying to get your baby to take a bottle can be really very stressful, it always works out, you just have to find the right bottle for the right baba.
