Heather writes about the complexity of deciding when to give bottles to babies whose mothers must, or will, be separated from them at some point, and says that the only rule is "the later the better." I don't altogether agree with this, because although the 12 week old who furiously refuses anything but her mother's breast is showing much good sense, she is also giving her mother even more grief than she probably would anyway feel at going back to work. Clearly it is true that "top-ups" too early are destructive; but later isn't always better. The rule of thumb that an LC told me when I was an anxious first-time mom was: as soon as bf has been really well established, wait one week to be on the safe side and then start a "snack" by bottle every day or two -- not ad lib, because the point is not for the baby to decline a breast later on since mom is still around at that point; but enough, and often enough, that the bottle is a recurring item in the baby's mental universe. This start time seemed to work out between 3 and 6 weeks for most people, later for some. I like it because it's a flexible rule of thumb that reminds people that they need to use their heads and their own good sense, and that if their goal is to reduce the stress on mom and babe then protecting bf is part of the point. Elisheva Urbas NYC