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Home > Breastfeeding > Pumping & Bottle Feeding

Alternative Feeding Methods

There are a number of options for feeding baby when you are unable to directly breastfeed - a bottle is only one of them. If your baby is older than 4-6 months old, consider going straight to a cup. If your baby is less than 3-4 weeks old, it is best to avoid the use of a bottle for a couple of reasons:

• regular use of a bottle instead of breastfeeding can interfere with mom's efforts to establish a good milk supply
• bottle use also increases baby's risk of nipple confusion or flow preference

Following are some resources for alternative feeding methods.

Bottle | Cup, Dropper, Spoon | Finger Feeding | At Breast | Back to Breast | Older Babies

Bottle feeding

• Tips for bottle feeding the breastfed baby
  • How to bottle-feed the breastfed baby @
  • Recommended Nipples for Bottle Supplementation by Diana West, IBCLC
  • New thoughts on using bottle nipples with breastfed babies from Lactation Education Resources
  •  Bottle-feeding as a tool to reinforce breastfeeding by Dee Kassing, from J Hum Lact. 2002 Feb;18(1):56-60. Abstract.
  •  Haberman Feeder Instructions from Medela
• Tips for encouraging your baby to accept a bottle
  • Offering Your Breastfed Baby a Bottle by Becky Flora, BSed, IBCLC
  • Tips on Offering Bottles by Paula Yount
  • Guidelines for Introducing a Bottle to a Breast-Fed Baby by Marianne Neifert, MD, et al.
  • Introducing Bottles and Pacifiers to a Breastfed Baby by Anne Smith, BA, IBCLC
  • Helping a Breastfed Baby Accept a Bottle from Lactation Education Resources
• Tips for combining breast and bottle feeding
  • Combining breast and bottle feeding by Anne Smith, BA, IBCLC
  • Partial Weaning & Combination Feeding @
  • Should I use a bottle if baby is refusing to nurse? from "Help -- My Baby Won't Nurse!" @

Alternatives to bottles for younger babies (including preemies)

Cup, dropper, syringe, and links with various methods

• Alternatives to bottle from AskDrSears.com
• Alternative Feeding Methods for Breastfed Babies from Lactation Education Resources
• Refusing a Bottle: Dropper & Cup Feeding by Paula Yount
• Cup feeding: Policy and Procedure by Nancy E. Wight MD, FAAP, IBCLC
• Tips on cup feeding by Kathy Kuhn, IBCLC
•  Cup Feeding from the Breastfeeding Committee for Saskatchewan
• Cup Feeding Instructions and FAQs from foleycup.com
• Cup Feeding Video using the Medela SoftFeeder, from Breastfeeding.com and Medela (also shows a paladai)
•  Comparison of the Safety of Cup and Bottle Feedings in Premature Infants Whose Mothers Intend to Breastfeed (p. 17 of PDF file) information on study by Kathleen A. Marinelli, MD, IBCLC; Georgine S. Burke, Ph.D; Virginia L. Dodd, MS, RNC. The full article can be found here.
•  Feeding by cup, paladai or spoon (see p. 206 of PDF file - note that this file is very large and will likely take a long time to load if you have a slow connection) from the WHO document Managing Newborn Problems: a guide for doctors, nurses and midwives.
• Physiologic Stability of Newborns During Cup- and Bottle-feeding by Cynthia R. Howard, et al., from Pediatrics, Vol. 104 No. 5 Supplement, November 1999, pp. 1204-1207.
•  SoftFeeder Instructions from Medela

Finger feeding

• Finger Feeding by Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC
•  Feeding low-birthweight pre-term infants (finger feeding) by Wendy Oddy (Appendix E of this large PDF document)
•  Finger-Feeding with a Feeding Tube from the Breastfeeding Committee for Saskatchewan
• Finger-feeding a Preemie by Jude Kurokawa, CNM, from Midwifery Today, Spring 1994 (No. 29)
• Finger-feeding a Preemie - A Follow-up Letter by Linda Killion Healow, RN
• Finger feeding with an SNS and caution re: finger feeding with an SNS by Kathy Kuhn, IBCLC
•  Finger feeding with a periodontal syringe from the Breastfeeding Committee for Saskatchewan
•  Hazelbaker™ FingerFeeder Instructions from Medela
  

Options for supplementing baby at the breast

• Nursing Supplementers from Notes from "Induced Lactation and Adoptive Nursing" @
• Using a Lactation Aid (nursing supplementer) by Jack Newman, MD
• Using a feeding tube device at breast can be frustrating and fiddly. Why bother? by Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC
•  Breast Feeding with a Feeding Tube from the Breastfeeding Committee for Saskatchewan
• Tips from moms on using a nursing supplementer
• Nursing supplementer comparison (Lact-Aid & SNS) by Darrillyn Starr
•  SNS Instructions from Medela

Weaning back to the breast from other feeding methods

• Transitioning baby from formula feeding to breastfeeding @
  includes links to information on reducing supplements and transitioning to the breast from bottles, nursing supplementers, Haberman feeders, etc.

Additional options for older babies (4+ months)

After 4-6 months, there is really no need to introduce a bottle -- babies this age can generally handle a cup just fine (expect to help out in the beginning, though). If you need to, try different types of cups to see what works best for you and baby: regular cup (try different sizes), sippy cup, no-spill sippy cup, cup with straw (or a cup with a built-in straw), and sports bottle are all options that different babies use.

Occasionally a baby will refuse to drink from any type of cup or bottle. In this case, try feeding baby breastmilk with a spoon, dropper or syringe. If baby has started solids, mix the solids with lots of breastmilk. You might also try a momsicle, ice cream, yogurt or a smoothie made with breastmilk.

• Introducing a sippy cup by Paula Yount
• Momsicles - Frozen Breastmilk On A Stick by Paula Yount
• Breastmilk recipes

Page last modified: 10/10/2005
Written: 02/17/03