Despite the fact that breastfeeding is known to be very beneficial to the baby’s health and later development, some mothers still prefer to nurse their babies out of bottles. Mother’s milk is probably the purest and most nutritious food available to the child, as long as the mother is not, at that time, suffering from some kind of medical condition or is unable to refrain from any kind of substance abuse or alcohol consumption. Of those mothers that do prefer to breastfeed, today’s fast paced lives means that they generally need to get back to work as little as two months after the pregnancy. What this does is it makes the mother stop breastfeeding toddler earlier than usual. Breastfeeding mothers will then switch the child onto feeding from a bottle a few weeks earlier than their due return to work, meaning that the child has been able to breastfeed for only a month and a half in some cases. Some cases have seen mothers unable to breastfeed just after the birth, but want to start breastfeeding after a few weeks. The question that a number of new mothers have is whether you can switch from bottle feed to breastfeeding instead of the other way around. The truth is that, although it is much easier to get the child to breastfeed from the beginning, it can be done a little later. The first step is always being able to offer the breast and guiding your child into a proper position to be able to latch on to the nipple. As long as the baby is comfortable, it is important to allow it to remain in that position until the baby seems to be full. When the baby starts to swallow less frequently and burps, allow the baby to move around and relatch if he/she is still interested in feeding.
Because of the fact that your baby is probably very reliant on formula at this time, you may have to move him or her slowly from formula supplementation to milk rather gradually while he or she improves and increases the tendency to breastfeed. The transition process should be allowed to take as long as the baby is comfortable with it and shouldn’t be rushed along as the baby will tend to be left rather confused. A number of mothers are usually concerned about the quality of milk given that they did not start breastfeeding immediately after the birth, but the early milk produced is still likely to be inside your breast around two weeks after the childbirth.
Submitted by J on November 24, 2010 at 10:32