Naomi, you wrote:
       "In general, even babies who refuse bottles will take them when there
is no alternative and they are hungry."
       Please be cautious in offering this statement.  I have seen it not to
be true on several occasions.  The most severe was a mother who called me,
saying that her doctor assured her this was true, and she wanted her baby to take
a bottle, and it had been *3 days* since the baby had eaten, but she was
still refusing the bottle.  I could hear the baby crying in the background.  To be
honest, I don't know how the little thing had the strength to cry!  I told
the mother that she absolutely needed to feed that baby, it was obvious the
doctor was wrong, and that she needed to nurse her child.  I told her I wouldn't
talk to her any more about it until the baby had been fed, pointing out that
she would not be able to hear me well over her baby's cries anyway.  (I figured
she wouldn't be able to "hear" me well, either physically or emotionally!)
After she had nursed the baby, she was welcome to call me back, and we would
discuss gentler ways to help her baby accept a bottle.  That's what the mom did.
I knew from experience with my own firstborn that this advice was not always
true, but this experience really brought home how a baby's health could be
compromised by such a "promise."
       Dee

Dee Kassing, BS, MLS, IBCLC
Collinsville, Illinois, in central USA

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