Weaning from the bottle or breast can be done in many ways but what’s the best way to do it, often makes mom confused? Everyone give their own inputs but how to do it? Here is the article which shares tips and insights about how to wean your baby from the bottle or breast. But you need to take care of your baby’s nutritional needs and their emotional needs first while slowly starting to wean your baby from the bottle or breast.
It is essential for you to know while you wean your baby from breast or bottle that your baby should be ready before starting this process. Your baby should be in a position of sitting and holding a cup. As you know breast-feeding and bottle-feeding both includes touching and holding. But once you move towards weaning, you offer your baby touch and eye contact. You need to consider the age of your baby as well. If your baby is younger than one year old still your tod must be having a strong urge to suck, so they won’t be ready to move to a cup. It becomes the duty of a parent to make sure that your baby can tolerate the substitute being offered when you wean them either formula or donor milk. Keep a close watch for stomach upset or any intolerance.
The following are the five ways to help you successfully wean your baby:
1. Slowly reduce Breast Feedings
Watch which feeding looks the least significant to your baby and allow that be the first to drop. After few days, you can eliminate another feeding. Normally night feedings are the most significant ones to babies so you may want that to be the last to eliminate.
2. Hold your baby close
If you wean your baby from the breast, soothe and clasp your baby close while offering a bottle. If weaning your baby from the bottle, cuddle, sing or talk to your baby.
3. Use Motion
Sometimes babies reject a bottle when you wean them from the breast. Motion can also work when you feed your baby. This can be while you are sitting on a birth ball, wearing your baby in a carrier or a sling. You may also find that walking also do wonders.
4. Give your Baby Plenty of Attention and Distraction can also help
If your baby looks at you to nurse, you can consider playing a game or offer a healthy snack. You can even make the distraction work for you where you can make eye contact and give your baby attention—that goes a long way to extend the time between feedings.
Breastfeeding meets many of your baby’s needs: cuddling, feeding, soothing, eye contact and sucking. During weaning process, it is significant to continue providing your baby lots of affection, skin-to-skin touch and eye contact. This also applies when weaning from a bottle.
5. Practice with cups
Many breastfeed babies wean to a cup with a built-in straw as against a bottle. From there, the toddlers learn to hold a cup when they can move it or try starting with a small amount of water. Spilling an ounce of water is less filthy than a larger volume of any other liquid.
You need to remember that weaning is a process and should never be done abruptly. If you do the weaning in a proper way makes your baby finished, satisfied and ready to move on. So the process should go in a slow motion that works for both parents and baby. If you have any questions or concerns regarding weaning your baby, you can contact a pediatrician or a feeding specialist in your area.