"One of my main concerns with bottle feeding is that it is so easy for baby
to
take large amounts quickly..."

Yes, I share the concerns - but that's also the main reason I *like* to use
a bottle with a non-gaining baby that has to be fed. If a baby is still, for
whatever reason, getting most of his intake not from the breast, I find that
most of the parents I've worked with very quickly become worn out with all
the wonderful(to me!) alternatives for delivering the volume necessary. In
fact, usually by the time they get to me they're all fretful and weepy and
discouraged and ready to give the whole thing up. But - guess what? - the
baby *still* needs to be fed, weepy frantic parents or not! So I look on the
use of a bottle (*after* discussing the pros & cons & various options w/the
parents, of course) as an emergency tool to get the food into the kid while
we work on all the other stuff.

I find that so many parents really just can't quite cope with all the
"other" stuff we think they should - cups, finger-fdg, droppers, SNS, at
least not for all the fdgs. Often I'll rec. using the bottle for night-time
fdgs (or whatever time period it is that they find most stressful - for many
w/other young kids, it's the pre-dinnertime through evening stretch), and
working with the baby at breast at other feeds.

Of course, we know that babies learn to nurse by nursing - but we also know
that you can bring a baby to breast but you can't make it suck. And often at
the point that I'm brought in, the baby is at the dwindling-away stage and
isn't going to learn how to nurse until it's had some fluid volume and
calories, along with some TLC at the breast. AND then bring in
finger-feeding, cup feeding, or whatever.

Moral of the above scenarios: I sure wish the LC would be called in earlier
in the process, BEFORE it's nurse-or-die time!

Cathy Bargar RN IBCLC
my motto: "Whatever works - and the parents get to define 'works'!"

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