Jennifer asks:
"And is poking the bottle nipple into his
mouth (the only way so far to get the nipple into his mouth)
teaching him
bad habits he'll need to unlearn later?  Would an alternate feeding
method
be better until he is more aggressive and stronger?"

Rule #1 is "Feed the Baby".  When the situation reaches the point
where the baby needs to eat now and in whatever method possible, I
can't think of any method (other than IV) which doesn't require an
open mouth to some extent.  This is true of "regular" bottle,
Haberman, finger, cup or breast (or even to insert a feeding tube
for gavage feeding).  While it certainly is preferable to coax baby
to open, sometimes the only option is to "force" whatever is being
used into the mouth.  Of course, we would want to do this as gently
as possible.  There is the possibility that you may have to
"retrain" baby to open its own mouth once the immediate need to be
fed is past.
Of course, it is important to remember that there is some reason
baby is reluctant to open.  Once something is in the mouth, milk
must be introduced gradually enough to be able to stop if baby can't
handle it and to introduce the milk at a pace baby can cope with.

Winnie

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