>
>
>I find cup feeding helpful for babies who haven't figured out that they need
>to open wide when coming to breast, and for settling desperate babies who
>otherwise are too frantic to latch methodically, and for showing parents
>that supplemental feeds need not be given by bottle, especially when one is
>confident that supplementing is a very short-term thing.
>
It also can encourage babies to stick their tongue out rather than back,
and is practical and easy for the mother. A small amount of breastmilk
(even drips from the other twin's breast when s/he isn't hungry) can be
used more easily in a cup than when they are sitting pitifully in the
bottom of a bottle. It is definitely the easiest method for direct hand
expression -- it can be done in a car, into a cup stored in a baggie,
and used on the spot with very little fiddling. Been there, done that.
I think there's a psychological thing that makes it beneficial, too.
Being hooked up to apparatus and then giving EBM in a bottle, tube, etc.
looks and feels very different from breastfeeding. Hand expression into
a cup does too, but at least it looks and feels more like feeding older
babies. Once one has mastered hand expression into a cup, bowls of
semi-solid food and eyes are quite simple and useful targets. And once
baby has mastered the cup, lids will be easily removed from sippee cups
I thought this was a good thing, but others may have other ideas -- just
as we all have our own ideas about dribbling, as Rachel has pointed out.
I used to tell myself that after all, I loved to see milk dripping out
of a sleepy baby's mouth...

Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, IBCLC and accomplished cup-feeder

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