Bottle feeding tips for slow feeders

• Just like breast-fed babies, some bottle fed babies are very slow to feed. Learning to drink from a bottle takes time, so you need to be patient.
• Ensure that your baby is hungry when she feeds-but not so hungry that she's crying and won't take the bottle.
• Your baby may not need to drink as much as you think she does-if she seems to have stopped taking any milk at all, put down the bottle and give her a break. If she's still not interested after a 5 minute break, you can consider her fed.
• Experiement with different bottles and teats-some babies struggle with one style and have complete success with another.
• Make sure that the milk is flowing fast enough. If she has to work very hard to get her milk so may get tired before she is full.
• Try to keep distractions to a minimum when you give her a bottle so she concentrates on feeding rather than everything else that going on around her.

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This article was written by Ella Walsh for Kidspot. Sources include SA Government's Parenting and Child Health and Karitane.