Mothers sometimes ask me if they 'ought' to give a bottle from the first
few weeks so the baby 'gets used to a bottle'  before they go back to work
at (usually here) about four or five months. We used to have a parentcraft
sister locally who told women they *had* to give a bottle by three weeks or
the baby would *never* learn to use one.

They also sometimes ask when it's safe to give a bottle, to avoid the baby
getting 'too used to the bottle' .

To both questions I have no certain answer. Of course both questioners need
to know the facts about breast milk supply, and  the increasingly-clear
advantages of exclusive bf...but we just don't know which babies will
dislike/refuse a bottle *whenever* it's offered (a three week cut-off date
is baloney - glad to say that p/craft sister has retired), which babies can
keep the two skills going, and  which babies will like the bottle all too
much...except it seems to me, going on other people's experiences,  that
the later you leave it, the better (probably).

My observation is that babies who are offered truly so-called 'convenience
bottles', even as often as once a day (after the first weeks),  when the
mother has confidence in bf and in herself,  are less likely to 'go off'
bf.

But one single  teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy top-up of ABM given to a baby whose
mother is worried about her milk supply can be enough to threaten and
indeed wipe out bf - but that's nothing at all to do with the baby's
sucking skills.

Agree with Pat in SNJ's assessment of complexity of this aspect of newborn
behaviour - and of course it's further complicated by the fact that there
are *two* people behaving away like there's no tomorrw there, not just the
baby - and add the HPs and anyone else who's around 'helping'....phew.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc UK