There seem to be 2 conflicting sets of "how tos" for cup feeding.
They both advocate baby pacing, not pouring in the milk, using small
cups, baby supported sitting up, placing cup at level of baby's mouth
with milk almost touching upper lip and keep milk level
                                 but...
                                 then they split.

METHOD 1)
says let the baby lap the milk with the tongue

    and

METHOD 2)
says place the cup over the lower lip and let the tongue extend under
the cup, the baby will sip the milk.


Which method to you advocate?  why?

I use the 2nd method.  Why??? it is how I 1st learned, how is that for
a stupid answer.  BUT, it works.  The baby sips the milk just like an
adult would, completely under the baby's own control.  Recently one of
the LCs I work with saw a 5 week old who was supplemented with a cup
using the 1st method.  This baby (an ex-preemie) kept the tongue up to
the roof of the mouth during attempts to latch on.  Is this related to
the "lapping" of milk?  Lapping seems to me to be more a tongue tip
type movement.  This doesn't seem desireable for efficient
breastfeeding.

I'll be very interested to hear your collective opinions on this major
discrepancy in methods of teaching/using cup feeding.  Also, if you
know of literature supporting one or the other method, please include
it in your posting.

I just read the WHO draft document on breastfeeding in an emergency
mentioned uptopic and they instruct using the lapping method(1).

Carla (just north of Washington, DC)