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