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Giving Your Baby the Bottle: How to Support Oral Motor Skills
The art of bottle-feeding
Whether you choose to exclusively bottle-feed or combine the bottle with breastfeeding: how you offer the bottle is just as important as the bottle itself. A good latch and a calm drinking pace (flow) are crucial for healthy development of the mouth muscles and an easy transition between breast and bottle.
Choosing the right bottle
For optimal development of the mouth muscles, look for a bottle that comes as close as possible to breastfeeding:
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A wide latch: Choose a bottle with a wide neck and a teat that gradually widens. This encourages your baby to open their mouth wide, just as they do at the breast.
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A calm pace: Ideally, use a small teat size (slow flow or premature). If the milk flows too quickly, your baby has to work less hard. This can lead to choking or a strong preference for the "easy" bottle.
Exercise for the mouth muscles
Choosing a wide teat and a steady milk flow means your baby has to suck actively and use their tongue properly. This is good training for the muscles that will later be important for eating their first solid foods and developing speech.
Tip: Make sure your baby's lower lip is curled outward around the base of the teat. This creates a good seal.
Therapeutic or responsive feeding
How you hold and offer the bottle determines how hard the mouth muscles have to work. Does feeding not seem to come naturally? For example, because your baby is unsettled, spits up forcefully, has a short tongue-tie, or often chokes?
Don't struggle with it alone. Ask for tailored advice so feeding time can be relaxing again for you and your baby.
- By An Hermans - Midwife and Lactation Consultant
