Whether by necessity or choice you might decide that bottle feeding is best for you and your baby.

If that is the case then here are some tips worth considering ensuring that your baby’s health is always well cared for.

Naturally when feeding your baby on formula you will need to read the instructions supplied with the formula and not deviate from the recommended procedure.

It is possible to reduce the degree of nutrition your baby will be getting if you start to alter the recommended mixtures.

Once you find a formula that your baby is happy with this will ensure that they will be getting their required daily nutritional needs as they will be more likely to have formula that they enjoy consuming. Some formulas can cause allergic reactions in babies and it might take a little while before you find the one that is suitable for your child.

Cleanliness is one of the most important factors that you need to consider when using formula and bottles will need to be properly cleaned at all times.

You should never refill a bottle that has been used with more formula until it has been properly cleaned as it is too risky for your child’s health. Bacteria can form when old formula is left in a bottle.

Never share bottles that other mothers have been using with their children and don’t mix formulas or dilute one formula with another.

Cow milk isn’t recommended for younger children as it cannot be digested properly.
It is not until your child is approximately one year old before they can digest cow milk sufficiently to get the benefit of the nutrition that is available.

If you find that your baby isn’t increasing in weight as normally expected consult with your doctor and see whether a different formula might be more suitable or if there are other factors that might be causing a deficiency in nutritional levels.

Another thing that can cause degradation in the nutritional quality of the formula is if you freeze it for use at a later date.
This is something that should never be done.

Post from: Babycare help.info

Most children, by the time they are about 9 months old, have the motor skills needed to drink from a cup. If you think your baby’s ready to make the move from bottle to sippy cup, try filling a sippy cup with water and let your child try and drink from it. Don’t expect perfection with the first tries. He’ll probably drool, spit and dribble a bit, which will probably delight him! But within a few weeks and lots of practice, he’ll be willing to take all his drinks from the sippy cup. He’ll most likely be a sippy cup pro by the time he’s about 14 months old.

If you start the transition from bottle to sippy cup early, you’ll save yourself frustration – the longer a baby stays on the bottle, the tougher it is to get him to kick it. If the bottle is a security object for your baby, choose one with a special favorite animal or character to help increase his willingness to try and use it.

“Bottle rot” is common concern for parents of children who drink from bottles. A child’s teeth are susceptible to decay if he’s always drinking a sugared drink from it — formula, milk, or juice. Natural bacteria in his mouth feed on these sugars and attack the teeth for 20 minutes every time he takes a drink. What that boils down to is this: if he’s taking sips from a bottle every few minutes for an hour, his teeth are exposed to the sugars for at least 80 minutes. Over time, that causes tooth decay, or ‘bottle rot.’ If he falls asleep, tooth-decay causing sugars can pool in his mouth for hours. Children are less likely to nurse drinks for long periods of time if they’re offered in sippy cups.

The best way to avoid bottle rot is to give your child his drink and have him finish it within about 20 minutes. Then use a toothbrush or washcloth to wipe his teeth clean. Never put a baby in his crib with a bottle or sippy cup.

Finally, consistently emphasize what a ‘big boy’ he is by drinking from the sippy cup instead of his bottle, and he’ll reach for his sippy cup more and more each day.

Post from: Babycare help.info

Deficiency of milk may exist even at a very early period after delivery, and yet be removed. This, however, is not to be accomplished by the means too frequently resorted to; for it is the custom with many, two or three weeks after their confinement, if the supply of nourishment for the infant is scanty, to partake largely of malt liquor for its increase. Sooner or later this will be found injurious to the constitution of the mother: but how, then, is this deficiency to be obviated? Let the nurse keep but in good health, and this point gained, the milk, both as to quantity and quality, will be as ample, nutritious, and good, as can be produced by the individual.

I would recommend a plain, generous, and nutritious diet; not one description of food exclusively, but, as is natural, a wholesome, mixed, animal, and vegetable diet, with or without wine or malt liquor, according to former habit; and, occasionally, where malt liquor has never been previously taken, a pint of good sound ale may be taken daily with advantage, if it agree with the stomach. Regular exercise in the open air is of the greatest importance, as it has an extraordinary influence in promoting the secretion of healthy milk. Early after leaving the lying-in room, carriage exercise, where it can be obtained, is to be preferred, to be exchanged, in a week or so, for horse exercise, or the daily walk. The tepid, or cold salt-water shower bath, should be used every morning; but if it cannot be borne, sponging the body withsalt-water must be substituted.

By adopting with perseverance the foregoing plan, a breast of milk will be obtained as ample in quantity, and good in quality, as the constitution of the parent can produce, as the following case proves:

I attended a lady twenty-four years of age, a delicate, but healthy woman, in her first confinement. The labour was good. Every thing went on well for the first week, except that, although the breasts became enlarged, and promised a good supply of nourishment for the infant, at its close there was merely a little oozing from the nipple. During the next fortnight a slight, but very gradual increase in quantity took place, so that a dessert spoonful only was obtained about the middle of this period, and perhaps double this quantity at its expiration. In the mean time the child was necessarily fed upon an artificial diet, and as a consequence its bowels became deranged, and a severe diarrhoea followed.

For three or four days it was a question whether the little one would live, for so greatly had it been reduced by the looseness of the bowels that it had not strength to grasp the nipple of its nurse; the milk, therefore, was obliged to be drawn, and the child fed with it from a spoon. After the lapse of a few days, however, it could obtain the breast-milk for itself; and, to make short of the case, during the same month, the mother and child returned home, the former having a very fair proportion of healthy milk in her bosom, and the child perfectly recovered and evidently thriving fast upon it.

Where, however, there has been an early deficiency in the supply of nourishment, it will most frequently happen that, before the sixth or seventh month, the infant’s demands will be greater than the mother can meet. The deficiency must be made up by artificial food, which must be of a kind generally employed before the sixth month, and given through the bottle.

Post from: Babycare help.info