Nipple confusion question

[kkd]

Does anyone have experience or advice with nipple confusion- attempting to re-introduce a bottle later? We tried a bottle around weeks 3-4 with our DD. Her latch up to that point was good and she was an eager feeder. However, immediately after taking a bottle, her latch was not good- she sort of hung out at the breast, kind of sucked, but did not latch. It was a difficult process getting her re-trained. So- she’s 12 weeks old now, we have not been using a bottle- my question is can I re-try at some point? I would like to have the flexibility of pumping and being able to be apart from her, but not at the expense of not being able to breastfeed at all. So- I don’t know if it’s worth the risk to try? When we used a bottle, we used one with supposed slow flow, which a lactation consultant recommended. We also slowed down the feeding by tipping back the bottle. I don’t think the nipple confusion was because the milk came faster from the bottle- it was because she didn’t have to latch on.

[Llyra]

If it were me-- I would wait until you can introduce a sippy cup. Many babies will drink from a cup starting as early as six months. Drinking from a sippy is different enough from a bottle that I think the risk of nipple preference would be less. I've fought nipple confusion with two of my three kids, and it's serious, and having won the battle and gotten baby back on the breast, I don't think I'd take the risk. At the very least, I'd wait until six months or so.

Alternate methods of feeding can be used if you absolutely must be away-- my son drank for ages from a medicine syringe while I was at work, after we fought and beat the nipple preference.

[kkd]

Thsnks for your input. I think my instinct is that re-trying the bottle is a bad idea; I was just hoping to hear some encouraging success stories! I think your advice to wait and try a sippy is good advice.

We've tried feeding by syringe- both at breast and with finger...that took forever!! I think we tried everything!

[ewe+lamb]

There is something called the medela soft cup which is perfect for these sorts of situations, it has a bottle but no artificial nipple a sort of cup that you can squeeze and regulate the amount of milk that the baby gets - you'll find it in the shop at the LLL International or usa website.