I bottle-fed my first three kids with relatively few issues. Bottle-feeding is pretty straightforward and works in actuality a lot like you pretended it worked when you were bottle-feeding your dolls as a kid. There aren’t a lot of resources on how to bottle-feed and other than some basic instructions on how many ounces are recommended at a feeding, you won’t get much guidance from your pediatrician or even the all-knowing internet. There really is no philosophy of bottle-feeding that I can find.
From looking at the growth charts of my three bottle-fed babies and by knowing how bonded they are to me and how healthy they are, I think their experiences were successful. I loved the sweet time I spent rocking and feeding them and bottle-feeding was a pretty low-stress activity compared to the other tasks of becoming an instant parent through adoption. I have had my moments of irritation about the aggressiveness of the pro-breastfeeding movement that seems to imply my kids must be damaged because I couldn’t/didn’t breastfeed them. My kids are happy, healthy, and well adjusted in spite of all the dire predictions.
After the birth of my fourth child (our one and only biological baby), I was excited to get the opportunity to breastfeed. To put it very simply- it was not a positive experience. That’s the subject of a different post, but what I want to do here is give a few lessons I learned from breastfeeding that I would do differently if I have another bottle-fed baby either through adoption, birth or a foster child.
As simple as bottle-feeding is, there are some natural benefits and routines that happen during breastfeeding I want to take with me into my next bottle-feeding experience. So this post is to remind me, and also is meant to be some additional info for other adoptive parents on how to replicate the benefits of breastfeeding with your bottle-fed baby. So here you go.
Bottle-Feeding Tips from a One-Time Breastfeeder:
1) Mom is the primary feeder. I’m not saying Dad can’t occasionally do a bottle, but breastfeeding has shown me that it’s okay if Mom is the source of all nutrition for the first couple months. The next time I bottle-feed I want to be consistently the one person creating that bond and stability for this child and not be so quick to hand that job off just because I’m tired or so I can get some time away.
2) The bottle stays against your body. I don’t know how many times I have bottle-fed a baby while they’ve been looking around the room by moving the bottle around with them, even feeding them with their back against my body so they could see the world. That doesn’t work so well with breastfeeding. I want to create that same experience of being able to block out the rest of the world that breastfeeding naturally engenders by keeping that bottle in one spot and training my baby if they want to drink, they need to snuggle close and keep their eyes on Mama. When it’s time to introduce the sippy cup they can be in charge of holding it, but the bottle belongs to Mom.
3) Create a quiet atmosphere. Breastfeeding requires a relaxed mom. I want to remember to be relaxed while I’m feeding my baby by whatever means by creating a quiet space that’s free of distractions for either one of us.
4) Give yourself some privacy. I have often taken advantage of the ease of public bottle-feeding. I’ve given a baby a bottle while in the car, sitting at church, or at the park. While these aren’t bad things to do, I want to consider them less ideal options than if I was in a place where just the two of us were spending time together. I want to minimize those on-the-go feedings and work my schedule around having private times to cuddle and connect. I think it’s the difference between fast food and a lovingly-prepared feast.
5) Make bellybutton to bellybutton opportunities. One of the most precious things to me about breastfeeding were these moments where my baby and I were literally bellybutton to bellybutton. We all know the value of skin-to-skin, but with my bottle-fed kids I wasn’t sure how best to recreate that for them. Lifting my shirt and my baby’s is an easy way to touch tummies and create that skin contact bonding.
6) Switch sides. One of my kids was beginning to develop a flat side to his head when his pediatrician asked me if I was switching sides. Switching sides? She said that just like with breastfeeding, it’s best for bottle-feeding moms to stop halfway through a feeding, burp the baby, then move them to the other arm. It keeps their heads more evenly shaped, and helps them develop their neck muscles, eye muscles and apparently has a positive impact on brain development. Who knew?
7) Pursue breastmilk if you can. I was blessed with one of my adopted kids to have a friend who was pumping because her child couldn’t nurse for medical reasons. She allowed me to have the breast milk she didn’t need and it was HUGELY beneficial for my baby. It helped my baby heal from some digestion issues and helped with much-needed weight gain. I had the blessing of my pediatrician and a lot of personal knowledge about where this breast milk was coming from, which made me feel okay about it. I know that isn’t an option for everybody, but I want to be open to it if it became available. This may also mean pursuing adoptive breastfeeding if that seems right.
Bottle-feeding can get such a bad reputation as a far inferior experience to breastfeeding. I don’t think that has to be the case. Formula may not be the same perfect food breast milk is, but you can create those positive bonding moments and treasured memories by imitating the style of breastfeeding even when using a bottle.
Anybody else have tips for how to create a positive bottle-feeding experience?
February 11, 2013 at 10:16 am
What a cool post!
February 11, 2013 at 3:04 pm
Thanks, Brianna!
February 11, 2013 at 10:34 am
I second all of this! As you’ve said before, how you feed your baby (bottle or breast) is not a moral issue, but there are important things to be considered with bottle feeding. Valuable mother-child bonding can be lost due to the unattached nature of a bottle. It always bugs me when I see someone feeding their baby a bottle while the child faces outward. It just is not nearly as nurturing and nothing like if the child were breastfeeding. I thought these tips were really practical.
February 11, 2013 at 3:18 pm
Thanks, Melodie! I think there can also be issues when people aren’t intentional about using breastfeeding for bonding. It’s bizarre to see a child nursing and the mother seems totally unaware- carrying on conversations, shopping, whatever. It all comes down to your heart and what you want out of that feeding relationship. Obviously not every feeding time is going to be super meaningful, but I think that’s the goal- bottle-feeding or breastfeeding- that we’re focused on that bonding relationship. That’s why I eventually (once we weren’t doing every two hour feedings) got a bee in my bonnet about doing it privately with the goal of creating that bond.
February 11, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Nice! I am bottle-feeding the little guy I babysit two days a week, and it is a new experience for me…I felt a bit at a loss the first couple times. I guess it is pretty self-explanatory, but I find the whole “how do I know when he’s done? Is he still hungry? When do I burp? How many ounces do I defrost?” kind of stressful. Your points here probably aren’t too applicable for me in this situation (as I’m not the mom, and he’s eating pumped breastmilk in the bottle, not formula, so this bottle feed is an aberration from his norm), but they are really good to think about!
February 11, 2013 at 5:31 pm
Bethany, Renae and I have talked about this SO many times! I felt WAY more anxiety breastfeeding because I worried if I’d have enough and how would I know if he was done? I said I wanted something like a gas gauge so I could see how much I had left and how much he’d eaten
I wonder if it has anything to do with being an intuitive person vs. being a more scheduled person.
February 11, 2013 at 7:35 pm
You could be on to something there…
February 11, 2013 at 4:25 pm
This is a fantastic post! We’re currently waiting for a new foster placement, and as a mom who’s breastfed twice, I’m often worried about how I’ll feel about bottle-feeding should I get a baby to parent next. This list is immensely helpful!
February 11, 2013 at 9:54 pm
I have started out breastfeeding and ended up bottle feeding both of my boys. With both boys, I felt that bottle feeding was more bonding. With breastfeeding, I was constantly battling for a good latch, with the pain, with not having enough milk, with almost constant nursing strikes (as I have always had to supplement and they both preferred the fast flowing bottle). When I finally gave in and switched to bottlefeeding, I could cuddle them, look into their eyes, and enjoy them being close without struggling and fighting. I agree Maralee, that many times I have become so frustrated with the pro breastfeeding movement. I am all for breastfeeding… I wanted to breast feed both my kiddos. It just doesn’t work for me. In the end, you have to do what is right for you and your child and just make sure they are being fed and being loved.
February 12, 2013 at 9:37 am
I’ve spent the past five years working as a nanny, almost exclusively for infant twins. They have all been bottle-fed and I continue to be bewildered by a lot of the hubbub about “lack of bonding due to bottle-feeding” since I have never seen that as an issue. If I ever have my own children, I think I’d be more panicked about breastfeeding because I wouldn’t know when they were full? How much did they eat? I wouldn’t know how to troubleshoot the way I do with bottles, formula, and other related feeding issues! Still, this gives me something to think about as I have ALWAYS been feeding twins, and I am adamant about feeding them at the same time for a multitude of reasons. And feeding two babies has sometimes felt more like the ultimate in multi-tasking as I feed two, burp one while still feeding the other, oh wait the other one spit up … it doesn’t always allow for the same, exclusive attention that a singleton baby may receive. I’ve figured out a lot of ways to practically do this while holding them close, but I also encourage self-feeding and holding their own bottles once they’re able. That allows me to hold and focus on one baby and feed them, and let the other one hold their own bottle, and then we switch for the next feeding. I suppose I haven’t worried about bonding since I make sure to find other times of day to sit down with one baby and focus solely on them–though I’ll admit it’s pretty special to sit in a rocker with an armload of baby and cradle them both while watching them gaze at each other and play with each other’s hands stretched across my chest.
February 12, 2013 at 9:46 am
Lindsey, I think you bring up a really good point- sometimes necessity dictates our choices. For me, having two toddlers running around, playing at my feet while I breastfed meant there were times I was giving directions or wiping tears or reading stories while I should have been ideally just focused in on my baby. You may have moments doing two babies at once where you think they each deserve more attention, but what can you do? I’m thankful God made babies so resilient. I think they truly know when they are safe and loved in spite of the method of feeding being used.
Thanks for your input!