Giving bottles of BM? LO wants more. Advice?

[ahayden1230]

Asking for advice when giving LO bottles of expressed milk. I looked at kellymom website and I'm trying to go by that but he seems like he still wants more? Any suggestions? Or anyone else experience this? If so what did you do? I don't want to over do it for him.

[melody330]

A few questions before I give more answers. 1) Who is giving the expressed milk? 2)Why do you think he wants more? If he is fussy after a bottle....thats totally normal. Babies can be fussy. 3) How many oz, and how long is it taking for him to finish his bottle.

I did have this problem. My DS wound up hating bottles,and was always fussy after he had one. Basically I told the DC provider he won't be getting more than 4 oz, so they had to find other ways to soothe him. After about a week of this, he was totally fine.

[ahayden1230]

My DH is giving him one bottle a day right now and he is getting 2.5 to 3 oz.

[ahayden1230]

And usually 10 mins to finish bottle

[melody330]

Feb 11, 2015 10:49:47 GMT -5 ahayden1230 said:

My DH is giving him one bottle a day right now and he is getting 2.5 to 3 oz.

Okay - sorry I'm asking so many questions. Are these practice bottles or are you at work?

If they are just for practice, and he is still fussy after 3 oz I would put him to breast (even if you just pumped - which you should have).  We did this while DS was trying to figure them out.  Make sure DH tries other ways to soothe LO before he hands him over to you.  

Regarding it taking 10 minutes to take the bottle - this is a little fast.  Make sure DH is burping after each ounce, and switching sides after the burp.  BF babies like to suck, and they can't do that with a bottle  DH will need to find another way to soothe LO if he is fussy after his bottle.  2.5-3 oz bottle seems totally appropriate but it should take around 15-20 minutes with paced bottle feeding.

[ahayden1230]

Just for practice. I don't go back to work for another 5 weeks... I just want to make sure LO gets use to bottle even though it's tough on me. Yes I'm pumping while he is giving bottle.

Ok makes sense I know he is burping him half way but I will tell him to do it after each ounce.

[audrey1787]

Feb 11, 2015 11:21:58 GMT -5 melody330 said:

Feb 11, 2015 10:49:47 GMT -5 ahayden1230 said:

My DH is giving him one bottle a day right now and he is getting 2.5 to 3 oz.

Okay - sorry I'm asking so many questions. Are these practice bottles or are you at work?

If they are just for practice, and he is still fussy after 3 oz I would put him to breast (even if you just pumped - which you should have).  We did this while DS was trying to figure them out.  Make sure DH tries other ways to soothe LO before he hands him over to you.  

Regarding it taking 10 minutes to take the bottle - this is a little fast.  Make sure DH is burping after each ounce, and switching sides after the burp.  BF babies like to suck, and they can't do that with a bottle  DH will need to find another way to soothe LO if he is fussy after his bottle.  2.5-3 oz bottle seems totally appropriate but it should take around 15-20 minutes with paced bottle feeding.

This is exactly the issue we had and it was really hard to keep caregivers from overfeeding DD. I tried getting her to take a pacifier after a feeding but she didn't like any of them and it was really hard for other people to soothe her without a bottle because she just wanted to suck. Slowing down the feeding is great advice. Eating too fast and not taking burping breaks can create a lot of extra gas which would make the fussyness worse. I never told them they couldn't give her an extra ounce or two but I did ask that they try to wait an hour.

Fun story: about the 3rd time DH gave her a bottle he started bragging about how she drank 4 ounces in 5 minutes. My eyes got huge and I said that's not a good thing. 1 minute later she puked up what looked like the whole bottle's worth of milk alllll over him. He never fed her that fast again lol

[mully626]

I had this issue with DD1. She would be SO fussy once her bottle was gone but she really didn't need more milk. She was just a big fan of comfort nursing (she loved nursing for an hour at a time, ugh) and was angry about not being able to do that with the bottle. Daycare would just end up giving her her paci right away after a bottle and that helped a lot. Though I did tell them if she was still fussy after a half hour or so, to try giving another ounce.

[ellabee]

Feb 11, 2015 11:21:58 GMT -5 melody330 said:

If they are just for practice, and he is still fussy after 3 oz I would put him to breast (even if you just pumped - which you should have).  We did this while DS was trying to figure them out.  Make sure DH tries other ways to soothe LO before he hands him over to you.  

We did this too. When we first started to introduce bottles, I had it in my mind that LO should get her whole feeding via the bottle and that would replace a whole nursing session - if it didn't work exactly like this, we were doing something wrong and it would somehow upset the delicate balance I was trying to keep of supply/demand.

Then I met with an LC who had me sort of change my thinking. She said it was okay in the beginning when introducing bottles to take a complementary approach. For example, if you only have a few oz saved up for that first bottle, it's okay for DH to give it to LO as an "appetizer/snack" while you pump and then finish the feeding at the breast if needed. She recommended all of the things that pp's mentioned (paced feeding, soothing), but not to look at it as a failure if you have to put baby back to breast. (Obviously when you, LO and DH have more experience, the bottle will replace the whole feeding.)

I'll also mention that during those first few bottles I had a lot of anxiety about how much LO should be eating. We would do 2.5-3 oz bottles, then give .25-.5 more in increments until LO was satisfied. Just anecdotally - my LO took 4.5oz bottles from a very early age. I was convinced that she should be in the 2.5-3oz range based on everything I read and from surveying my friends, but even with paced feeding and everything, LO would consistently be happy (not overly full) with 4.5. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that your LO really could just be a bigger eater. Take my experience with a grain of salt and follow your mama instincts.  

[liziz]

Our policy from the beginning when H (and then daycare) was giving her a bottle, is that she gets the bottle as slow as you can make her go (paced, lots of burp breaks, etc.), and then she gets 20 minutes of snuggling afterwards, and THEN she can be evaluated to see if she's still hungry.

Early on, H had some success with a paci right after the bottle, but that hasn't been reliable for us, but a little extra snuggle time never hurt anyone!

[auburn]

My mom is keeping DS today. It is my second day back at work. He has never taken more than 4 oz from a bottle. Today, he slept a really long time and then drank a 6 oz bottle! Then, less than 3 hours later, she gave him another 4 oz bottle. UGH. I am worried I cant keep up.

[Deleted]

What I didn't see mentioned is that you need to be using the slowest flow bottle nipples you can find. no milk should come out when you hold it upside down and if you squeeze it milk shouldn't steam out fast.

Usually a combo of remembering baby can be fussy after a feeding for a lot of reasons aside from just hunger--sometimes they need to suck and sometimes they need help burping esp if they are just starting to take bottles or the flow is fast.

Make sure you are using paced bottle feeding. there are videos online you can view to give you an idea. sit baby more upright, tilt bottle downward, pause frequently to burp for a minute or 3 and switch sides you hold baby on. a bottle should take 20 miutes to give. then burp very very well for several minutes and offer a pacifier for another 5-15 minutes. then offer SMALL amount of additional milk again slowly with lots of pauses.

When they first start with bottles they may take super small amts and really not be satisfied, or they may chug cause they can't figure out how to stop the flow--they have to learn to hold their tongue in a different place for bottle than they do for the breast.

[fish8412]

You have 5 more weeks till you go back to work. LO doesn't need 1 bottle everyday for practice. I would only do once every other day. (But keep pumping every day to build your supply.)