I feel the need to jump in here on this topic.  I am very behind on my posts but wanted to address this now before I finish catching up.

I understand what Barbara is saying that cup feeding is not right for every baby and the person cup feeding needs to know how to do this correctly and WATCH THE BABY WHILE FEEDING THEM.  But I would prefer to see more babies feed via cup then bottles if they are not going to the breast.
The baby may not totaly be in control of how much of a bolus of milk they take in with the cup but it is far easier for them to control this amount and the swallowing with a cup than a bottle.
With cup feeding; the baby is sitting up right, the cup is brought to their lip and then you wait for the baby to draw in the milk.  When they want to take in milk they do and when they are done the do not take in any more milk.  They are in control of their intake and pacing of the feeding.
With bottle feeding; once the baby starts to suck and the gravity of the bottle potentially the whole bottle can end up in their little stomachs before they realize they have over eaten.  The food is coming at them like being feed with a funnel, they have less control of their intake, so greater tendency to overfeed and all the complications that can go with that.
Both methods have their down sides and all alternative feeding methods away from the breast can be habit forming.
I have used cup feeding on both preterm and full term babies.  I am not advocating that more cup feeding be done(but this may not be such a bad idea), I am asking people to truely evaluate what the options are, seeing both the advantages to all alternative methods and realize they all have to taught correctly and WATCH THE BABY!
Ann Perry RN, IBCLC
Boston, Mass

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