How to Get Baby to Prefer Breast Over Bottle
Sometimes breastfeeding doesn't get off to a good start and earlier you know it your baby is taking more and more than bottles and won't breastfeed at all. Getting a babe back to breastfeeding afterward a menstruation of canteen feeding can have some patience and perseverance, but it is definitely possible. If your chest milk supply has dropped then in addition to getting baby from bottle to breast you may have to build your milk supply or relactate. This article reviews how to get baby back to chest subsequently a period of bottle feeding.
Tips to get started
- Build your breast milk supply past regular pumping or manus expression as needed or see our Tips for Relactation
- Keep your baby well fed while he practices breastfeeding and then he doesn't acquire to associate hunger and frustration with the breast. Being hungry won't force a infant to breastfeed well.
- Stay calm—practice breastfeeding without pressure, relax your shoulders and try not to look tense, smile! Follow your infant'due south cues if he seems stressed and try again at another feed.
- Be patient—it can take a while for a babe to acquire something new merely lots of babies accept made the change from bottle to breast. Never try to strength your baby to the breast as this volition exist counterproductive.
How to go infant back to breast
Skin-to-skin
Babies accept a strong instinct to breastfeed and their instincts tend to exist at their strongest when they are held close to the breast in skin-to-pare contact. Try holding your baby next to the naked breast without pressure level to latch on (adhere to the breast). The fewer clothes between you the better.
- Call up to take off whatever scratch mittens so your infant can use his hands and tune into all his natural feeding reflexes.
- Relaxing in the bath together in depression lighting with your infant between your breasts tin can encourage feeding reflexes.
- Using a sling effectually the business firm can give your infant easy access to the breast.
- Don't worry if your baby doesn't try to latch during his first time skin-to-peel—the important thing is to help your baby associate the breast with a warm, relaxing and safe place to be with the opportunity to breastfeed when he is ready.
Try different breastfeeding positions
The way a babe is held at the breast tin assist or hinder latching. In the right position many babies can latch on all by themselves. Laid back or reclining positions tin can exist peculiarly helpful with cocky latching. Our articles Breastfeeding Positions for Newborns and Breastfeeding Videos describe the main breastfeeding positions. If you're non sure of the best fashion to hold your baby, contact your breastfeeding helper or IBCLC Lactation Consultant, it will really aid to have an experienced cheer leader at your side.
Avoid using a dummy or pacifier
A dummy or pacifier encourages a different suck to the 1 required for a good latch on the breast and as well takes the identify of the chest as main comforter. Try to reduce reliance on a dummy by offering the breast and skin-to-skin contact as the comfort for your baby instead. Letting a baby suck on a clean finger tin can also help to innovate a babe to the feeling of skin in their oral fissure as a comforter instead of a silicone teat.
Avoid using a bottle for some or all feeds
I manner to encourage a baby to breastfeed is to reduce their reliance on a bottle teat to pave the fashion for a different feeding method. Alternatives such equally loving cup feeding or finger feeding can encourage breastfeeding by helping to break a infant'southward association of nutrient with artificial teats.
- Cup feeding. Fifty-fifty very immature babies can feed from an open loving cup when it is done carefully see Cup Feeding a Breastfed Infant for videos and more information.
- Finger feeding. Finger feeding involves a baby sucking a parent'due south finger with a narrow gauge supplemental feeding tube held or taped alongside, through which the milk flows when baby sucks. The sucking technique needed for finger feeding is said to exist closer to breastfeeding than bottle feeding, and finger feeding can introduce a babe to the feeling of skin in their rima oris instead of a silicone teat. See What is Finger Feeding? for more information. After a trivial finger feeding to calm your baby and take the border off his ambition, you lot could try moving him to the breast. Ensure your breast is soft and not over full to assist him grasp the breast tissue to class a teat shape.
Make a bottle feed more like a breastfeed
If you can't avoid bottles yet, effort to make bottle feeding more like breastfeeding by following these tips to bottle feed a breastfed baby. When bottle feeding is more similar to breastfeeding it tin help a baby transition between the two ways of feeding more than easily. The shape of the teat, the flow rate and the way yous offer milk in a bottle can help or hinder breastfeeding. Some mothers hide the bottle in a cloth and go along babe next to a naked breast during their feed to help them associate the breast with milk.
Nipple shields—brand a chest more similar a bottle
Nipple shields are small silicone covers with holes in the tip that fit over a nipple. Because a nipple shield will feel and taste closer to a bottle teat this can be a helpful bottle-to-chest transitioning tool for babies who are already used to bottles. It may be helpful to try it when your baby is sleepy or in calorie-free sleep and with a breast full of milk. Expressing a fiddling milk into the cease of the shield will give your baby an instant advantage if he latches. Some breast compressions can help go along your babe's interest if he does latch. Breast compressions involve applying gentle pressure to your breast to stimulate milk flow—be sure to go on your fingers far plenty from your nipple so that y'all don't disturb your infant'due south latch. See Nipple Shields Expert or Bad? and What is Chest Pinch? for further information.
Some mothers have had success with latching by placing a bottle teat over their nipple for a practice session. Make sure this doesn't rub and make you lot feel sore.
A sleepy babe may latch
When your babe is in a light slumber or not frantically hungry bring him skin-to-skin next to a full chest; he may latch in his sleep. Or hold your baby for a full sleep wheel in your artillery and offer the breast when you meet the earliest feeding cues. It can help if you can initiate the let-down (milk release) earlier your baby goes on to the chest so that there is an instant advantage of milk. If your infant latches, some gentle breast compressions tin increment milk flow. A night and quiet room can be helpful to avoid distractions for your baby. Meet Bed-Sharing With Babe for rubber information if you are considering bed-sharing.
Try switching betwixt bottle and breast
Switching from a canteen to the chest one-half way through a feed has worked for some mothers by slipping the bottle teat out of baby'due south oral fissure and quickly moving them onto the breast earlier they observe. If baby hesitates at the experience of skin in their rima oris a lilliputian gentle rocking or movement can encourage them to continue with the latch.
Employ play and sense of humor
For a slightly older baby, using new positions in a playful fashion may help plough breastfeeding into more of a casual fun thing, rather than an activity that creates tension and anxiety. Trying different positions and places for latching on—in the bath, the garden, kitchen, while walking near, in a night room, even dangling a breast over him when he is on the floor (while you lot both giggle)—may all help make information technology more of a fun matter to do. Sometimes being inventive and making a silly game involving breastfeeding may work.
Watch other mothers and babies breastfeed
It tin be helpful to spend fourth dimension with other breastfeeding mothers for support and ideas. An older babe may be interested to re-create other babies breastfeeding.
In one case your babe latches…
Total breast or empty chest?
Attempt to strike a balance betwixt offering a soft breast which will be easier for a latch, and a breast that is full enough to give an instant advantage of plentiful milk. Shaping your chest ie compressing it/flattening it slightly to fit your babe's oral cavity tin can help your baby latch (i.due east. the same way yous might flatten a big sandwich full of lettuce before you take a bite). See Latching Tips for further help.
Stay relaxed
The first fourth dimension your baby latches to the chest will be very exciting, you may find you tense up or hold your breath. Attempt to relax and deed like this is natural and nothing special! You could sway slightly or rock your babe gently at this point. Some mothers accept tried singing or chatting to their babe while their little 1 latches. The next step is providing an instant advantage for any suckling, either via a full breast and an already initiated let-down or past breast compressions or with a supplemental nursing system (encounter below). As soon as your baby is taking good volumes at the breast endeavour to phase out using the bottle for any top-ups so your baby tin learn to breastfeed without nipple confusion.
Supplemental nursing system
If your milk supply is very depression, supplementing at the breast with a homemade or commercial supplemental nursing system can help transition babe back to breast once they begin to latch. If your baby is latched correctly the sparse feeding tube of the supplementer runs aslope the nipple or nipple shield delivering plenty of breast milk or formula. This helps give your babe a positive association with the breast as a nutrient source and will too stimulate your own supply simply by infant beingness latched on. Information technology tin can be fiddly and take some do, and bear in heed an older babe may exist aware of the tube at get-go. See Breastfeeding With a Supplemental Nursing Organisation for more than information.
Finish at the breast
If your infant is however having supplements by bottle but has started to latch, it can sometimes work well to offer most (but not all) of the supplemental feed offset and and then end with a breastfeed. This manner a baby learns to fall asleep total and contented at the breast. As your supply increases and baby'south technique improves less supplement tin be offered earlier the feed so that the bottle is gradually phased out.
If breastfeeding hurts…
Working with an IBCLC lactation consultant when y'all are trying to become your baby back to the breast can be a great support. There may exist good reasons why breastfeeding didn't work out the first time and information technology can assist a swell idea to talk these through. Maybe information technology was because breastfeeding hurt because your baby was in a shallow latch, or yous didn't call back yous had enough milk, or you had flat or inverted nipples. Knowing answers to common problems can help prepare you lot for any blips in your bottle-to-chest journeying. Your lactation consultant will exist able to make suggestions to meliorate latch, positioning and natural language part.
Trouble shooting
Baby crying, arching and pulling away?
Sometimes a baby may seem quite distressed by breastfeeding or even the idea of breastfeeding. He might arch his back and pull abroad from the breast every time his mother tries to latch him, he may get very upset and weep. This might happen when a baby associates a negative experience with breastfeeding such as existence pushed onto the chest when he is upset/crying or having their head held in position when they are trying to get away from the breast. Sometimes well pregnant health professionals can cause this by their attempts to brand a baby to breastfeed. Or a female parent may inadvertently perpetuate it by repeating the technique. Once a baby is upset, a mother will get upset too and the tension around breastfeeding can be reinforced with every feed. Taking a short break from trying to breastfeed can help to break this negative pattern.
Accept a break
Taking a pause from trying to breastfeed for a few days might feel counterproductive, merely making breasts a happy place (mamaandbabylove.com) tin reset your baby's bad memories. Substitute breastfeeding efforts with lots of peel-to-skin contact without any pressure level on your part to go your baby to latch. Try breastfeeding once more in a few days using breastfeeding positions that requite your babe more control of how and when to latch. Christina Smillie describes a step by stride approach in her handout Time Off to "Reboot" the Baby and Become Over Breast Distress.
Stay calm
Babies breastfeed best when they are calm and alert. Choose a moment to effort breastfeeding when your infant is calm, and help your baby stay calm by talking to him, reassuring him, maintaining heart contact and staying calm yourself 1.
Summary
Just equally many breastfed babies tin can exist persuaded to accept a bottle, it is possible to get a babe to take the breast afterward a flow of canteen feeding. It tin take some patience and perseverance but in that location are several tips and tricks to endeavour even if your baby is several weeks or months erstwhile.
Source: https://breastfeeding.support/how-to-get-baby-back-to-breast/
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