Concerning finger-feeding vs. bottle-feeding:

My understanding of why finger-feeding is considered preferable is that
1) The baby's tongue is positioned more as it would be when nursing,
rather than pushed back as during bottle-feeding, providing better suck
training.
2)  It's easy to transition from finger-feeding to the breast (during a
feeding session) as the tube can be used as a supplementer once the baby
latches.
3)  (Never mind the baby, ) parents can become attached to the bottle as
an easy safety net.
As always, this decision depends on a lot of factors, including age of
the baby, parents' attitudes, why supplementing is necessary, etc.  I
just hate to see finger-feeding presented as an option in an apologetic
way (as in, gee, I know this is SO much harder than the bottle, but....)
By the way, probably one reason that bottle-feeding is so much less
*awkward* is that everyone in this culture has seen it performed
thousands of times.
This is my first posting to LACTNET so I'll just just add that I'm a LLLL
from Minneapolis, enjoying all the LACTNET enthusiasm and wealth of
experience and viewpoints.
Marcia McCoy

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