My own guideline to mothers who ask about the casual use of a bottle is to wait until neither baby nor mother will see the bottle as any form of rescue - from hunger, from uncertainty, from fatigue, from togetherness, whatever.  Once both mother and baby *know* that breastfeeding is fun and easy and the bottle is nothing better than an annoying occasional make-do, then it's unlikely to cause a problem.  That may be 10 days for some couples, 8 weeks or more for others.

The mother who's using a bottle as a tool because there's a problem is presumably also being monitored by someone who can help her use it rather than abuse it.  

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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