Bottles: How often does an infant need to practice?

[noralou]

... in order to accept an occasional bottle?

My twins are 4mo NICU graduates (6 weeks early, so adjusted age is about 2.5 months old), and it was a long process to get out of a nurse, bottle, pump routine. Now I am happy to say, we don't need bottles at all anymore. Two great nursers!
I've been pumping and giving them bottles once a day lately so they will still accept a bottle if I need to go somewhere and leave them with DH or a grandma. But if I could get away with fewer bottles, I'd like to!

In your experience, would they stop accepting bottles if it stops being part of their daily routine?

[octobermom]

In my experience yes but how often not sure. My LO is around the same age as yours (but not a preemie) I introduced her to a pumped bottle at around 2 weeks because I liek having the option at times she took it great and did fine going between breast and pumped milk in the bottle.. Then around 2 months or so I jsut happened to go a few weeks with out giving her one.. When at 10 weeks I tried again she would have NOTHING to do with it. I tried for a while even with several diffrent bottles/nipples but it was only mama she'd take. Honestly I thought I'd not like ONLY dirrectly breastfeeding but it turned out to be such a wonderful experience.. She is now jsut shy of 5 months and just today I actually started pumping a little and I've been successfully giving her a small amount in a cup to drink this is jsut for DH use if I'm away..

Deanna

[texmati]

once a week? once every few weeks? I definitely wouldn't do every day; especially with twins! so many dishes!

[octobermom]

I'd try for a few times a week at least for a bit and see I went two weeks and that ended it for us... For the jsut ocasional bottle you really don't need more than 1 (2 in your case)

Deanna

[noralou]

Thanks for your thoughts.
Yeah, once a day does feel like too much (but not when I think about how we started out: 8+ per day, every time after I nursed them!) I think I'll try every other day for a while.
It's important to me that they can still take a bottle so I can occasionally go volunteer a couple of hours in DS1's kindergarten class (which begins in 2 weeks), take him places sometimes without the babies, etc. I guess I'd rather err on the side of too many bottles right now, but I'd love a break from pumping and washing bottles! When they're old enough for sippy cups (I can't remember how old that usually is), I'll be so glad to drop bottles completely.

[texmati]

Oh, well in that case I'd do a couple of things-- first if you know you are volunteering on a certain day, offer a bottle a few days before so you have time to figure out if there is going to be a problem.

Also, I'd keep a few alternate feeding methods in the back of my mind-- small cup, eye dropper, sippy, fingerfeeding ect.

[crystal_buffaloe]

Just wanted to say that once a day seems like too often to me, too. My 10wo really hated the bottle at first, but we worked at it, she got one bottle every two or three days starting at around 5 weeks, and now she takes it great