Breastfeeding is not something that you should consider easy. Unless you are some kind of a superwoman, right? Since there is no perfect human in this world of ours, we are bound to struggle in situations similar to this one. You should be aware that this is something pretty common and that you shouldn’t panic in case something like this happens.
Expecting that anything in life will pass completely without any struggle is not something that can be called realistic. So, you need to be prepared for many situations in life. Anyway, the main topic we gathered here is breastfeeding. You cannot expect it to go flawlessly. In fact, most of the time it will, but there are some situations where you simply cannot have an influence over a situation. One of the most stressful things for every mother is when a baby rejects to take formula.
Naturally, introducing formula into the diet of your child already means that you encountered some sort of problem along the way. So, you can be sure that you will face some unpleasant things like anxiety, worrying, and many other states that are pretty common in this state. A high percentage of Babies from all around the world will usually reject to take the formula as a substitute to mother’s milk.
You can be sure that this is a highly complex process and that chances of succeeding are not big. However, that doesn’t mean that this is impossible. Sadly, many parents from all over the world are not lucky enough for their child to consume formula. This is the reason we have decided to do research on this topic in order to provide some answers on how you can overcome this obstacle. We’ve divided the article into steps, so you can follow them more thoroughly. Without further ado, let us begin.
1. Preparing a Bottle
As you many know, the only way you can introduce the baby formula to your child is through using a bottle. So, the first step you need to do is to prepare a bottle you are going to use. Of course, the first thing you should check the temperature of the bottle. It should match the temperature of the mother’s milk. Furthermore, you need to make sure that the bottle you are using is completely bacteria and germ-free. That way you will not transfer some harmful particles to your baby’s mouth. We are not going to go into the details, but this is something that you shouldn’t do at any cost.
There is a complete list of the stuff you can do before you can give the bottle to your child.
Washing hands is an absolute must before you even think about having contact with your baby’s bottle.
The bottle itself needs to be sterilized. The best thing you are going to do this is to place it into the pot filled with boiling water. The bottle should be inside the boiling water for about five minutes.
Prepare the formula by following strict directions that you can find on the package. The formula should be mixed with three to four ounces of breast milk.
We’ve mentioned that achieving the exact temperature of the mother’s milk is the thing that will determine if the child is going to accept it or not.
2. The Motivation
In case your baby decides not to accept the bottle and the formula inside it, you need to develop other things you can do in order to motivate the baby. One of the commonest things done in this case is walking the baby outside the house. It doesn’t matter what kind of baby carrier you have. Walking your baby is the best way to reduce the level of anxiety and improving the mood. Some babies refuse to take the bottle since there is no skin contact, which is present at breastfeeding.
One of the most important things you can do to improve your child’s mood, which will ultimately lead to the better consumption of the formula is to have frequent contact with your baby. Patting is probably the most effective way of them all. You can even create some sort of rhythm pattern, which will help you a lot, you can be sure of that. Naturally, the contact is something that improves our mood even when we are older, why shouldn’t be the case with babies.
3. Sleep Feeding
If you have tried out all of the ways to feed your child, and you didn’t succeed, there is the last resort. You can try something that’s called sleep feeding or dream feeding. This is something that is much common than you may think. It should be pointed out that this is the method practiced mostly when a baby experiences pain during the feeding process. Don’t get us wrong, this doesn’t mean that you should feed your baby only through the night. If this happens, your baby can develop a nasty habit of eating through the night, which is not good both for parents and the baby.
Dream of sleep feeding is just a solution that you will have to change after you find something better. But this is something that will save you a lot of stress and anxiety throughout the day. Sometimes it can happen that a child asks to eat pretty often. Many mothers experience this. You can find a solution for feeding the larger amount of food to your baby instead of giving a couple but short breastfeeding sessions.
The Conclusion
Feeding your child is not something that will pass without worrying. So, you need to prepare yourself for this. Thankfully, there are a couple of ways you can actually prevent it from happening or solving the situations when it actually happens. So, we provided you with a couple of steps you can undergo in order to solve situations like this without too many headaches.
