Special Needs

Bottle suggestions for babies with low muscle tone

My little man was born with Down syndrome 3 weeks ago, and has low muscle tone.  He does well feeding in general, but even with chin and cheek support, he's still "sloshing" out a lot of the milk, and occasionally will cough when he gets too much milk too fast.  We're currently using the Medela bottles (I'm exclusively pumping & feeding breastmilk), and I think the flow is too fast for him.  We tried switching to the Dr. Brown's bottles, and the flow is too slow for him, causing him to feed for a really long time, and usually fall asleep in the middle of the feeding.  (We didn't persist with the Dr. Brown's for very long though).  I know breastmilk in general tends to flow faster, also.  Does anyone have any recommendations for bottles/nipples that have worked well for their babies?  I know all babies have different preferences, but it'd be nice to have a place to start! :)  Thanks!

Re: Bottle suggestions for babies with low muscle tone

  • We tried the BreastFlow bottles but they didn't work.  The only bottles that worked for us were Avent.
  • My son has DS too! He actually had an NG feeding tube for 4 months and it wasn't until we used the Dr. Brown bottles/nipples that he was able to take enough by mouth safely and quickly enough that we were able to get rid of the NG. Dr. Browns were our savior! They have different flows so maybe try a faster flow one if you think the one you have now is too slow???
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  • We never had a problem with the Dr. Brown Bottles I would try those again with a faster flow.
  • Congratulations! We use the Dr. Brown's bottle for DD. We went through several before we ended up sticking with these. We just moved to a level 2 nipple yesterday and she is doing great with them. We have long feeding times too but its b/c of her tone not so much the actual bottle. Good luck with your baby boy!

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  • I am SO new at this...it never occurred to me to try another nipple! haha  I think I'll go buy some other Dr. B ones...I saw they have a wide base nipple.  I think he might be able to get a better seal on that.  Thanks!

     "Greeneyes"...how old is your son now? 

  • My son with DS nursed until I went back to work.  We are using Playtex Naturals (per our dev. therapist).  He has nad no trouble switching back and forth from boob to bottle.

    Good luck!

  • My DS has low-muscle tone and came home with an N-G tube. The only bottle that ever worked was the NUK. Therapist thought it was because the shape of it stimulated the roof of his mouth. He couls never latch onto a regular nipple.
  • Congratulations on the birth of your son!

    I tried a lot of nipples, and think the best in terms of slow flow (it doesn;t just pour/drip out) is the Playtex Natural Latch Slow Flow.

  • We have been using the cheapie gerber ones with the standard nipple shape. They come with the bottles with the green, purple and blue caps. The 4 oz ones were the easiest for us to hold and squeeze the cheeks with.

    The Playtex rapid flows suck. It seemed like DS had to work a lot harder with those. More harder than the newborn nipples. They also kept collapsing.

    We are also trying out Evenflo mediums. They have a slightly wider base, but seem a bit rigid IMO....Jury is still out on that....

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  • Congrats on your little one!! 

     Dean had an NG and then a G-tube (well, still has it, but we don't use it) because he couldn't suck at all. When he was strong enough to do some sucking, we just used the regular standard hospital nipples. Eventually we moved to the regular silicone nipples on the Gerber bottles and just slit open the nipples some more so that he could suck weakly or even bite and milk would come out. Since he'd had a swallow study and we knew he wasn't aspirating, we even squeezed the bottles to get milk in his mouth and he would swallow it. Eventually, it worked. GL! 

  • He is ten months now and is AWESOME!!! You have soo much to look forward to!
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  • Congratulations!! There are a few of us on here who have babies/children with Down syndrome, so feel free to ask any and all questions. We've all been there, especially at first when you're so new to everything.

    We've had to thicken Miles' formula since he was a few weeks old because he had swallowing problems and was aspirating the liquid, so it was getting into his lungs.

    Because we had to thicken his feeds, we had to use the fast flow Evenflo nipples, which were big enough to get the thickened formula through but still soft enough that he could suck them.

    I've heard Dr. Brown's are great too, though, so I would try those first. :) 

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    Nora Judith 7/2/06 Miles Chauncey 4/20/09 born with Trisomy 21 - Down syndrome
  • Congratulations!! There are a few of us on here who have babies/children with Down syndrome, so feel free to ask any and all questions. We've all been there, especially at first when you're so new to everything.

    That's great to know, thanks!  I'm just getting back on the Bump since he was born, so I haven't been over here much yet.  I'm glad to see there's a nice support system over here!

     

  • Congrats on your son! My son also has Down syndrome, he is 3 but we definately had to havetrial and error at first with finding a flow similar to breastfeeding as we did both with him. The Best IMO was Dr. Browns, preferably the wide bottles/nipples but the standard worked as well, we also had a lot of luck with Avent, but we preferred Dr. Browns due to gas issues that pretty much disappeared once we started with Dr. Browns( When he gets older, the training cups were great for his low tone as well!)

    Good Luck and Congrats again:)

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