From: coleb                Wed May 29, 1996 -- 11:58:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]@
When I posted "if 10% of babies get nipple confused, that's one out of 10
moms having to do deal with it. . ." I should have explained where I came up
with that number.  I have heard NUMEROUS times that 'there's no such thing as
nipple confusion' from nurses and doctors who say that 'their baby wasn't
nipple confused.'  So I give them a low percentage like that to make it sound
very likely that SOME babies do have problems going back and forth in the
first couple of weeks.  And in fact my baby did.  So what does that make me,
a bad mother?  With a dumb child???  And that works.  Actually I think 60%
would be closer to reality.
   Jan Barger's comments about the breastfed baby "who won't take a bottle"
is a wonderful comparison!  And I have used the term 'preference' rather than
confusion when the baby is old enough to be put to the breast and cry out in
real anger that he doesn't want to have to learn this, as opposed to trying
to suck and then getting frustrated.  But I've had nurses roll their eyes at
me because of the semantics.

   I have had success in telling parents that 2 weeks is a good learning
period for baby and a good time for milk supply to be pretty well
established and they can start giving one bottle a day at that time, if they
want to.  And I follow my moms with phone calls 1-2 days post-discharge, 2
weeks and 6 weeks of life.  I haven't heard that this has created a
problem for anyone.  But that 2 weeks is after the baby has figured out how
to BF.  If it takes them a week to be able to suck well at the breast, then
the two weeks starts at that time.  And I tell them that because so many moms
don't want to feel "tied down" and so many dads want to feed the baby.  If
it's going to keep them breastfeeding longer, I don't have a problem with
bottle feeding EBM.

Barb Cole, RN, IBCLC