Distracted 8-month-old still on NB nipple - time to move up?

csm7979 · April 2014

LO is a little more than 8 months old and gets bottles most of the time. (I BF if he wakes up in the middle of the night and in the AM before work, and on weekends.) He's still on newborn nipples, but I'm wondering if it's time to move up a size. I know it's better to use the lowest flow possible, to mimic BFing, but our nursing sessions are usually around 5 minutes and with the bottle, it takes around 15-20 minutes for him to finish. Lately he gets super distracted while drinking from the bottle and it's a royal struggle to get him to finish the full 4 oz. Should I try the next nipple size up? TIA!

vulpini · April 2014

I can't offer any help from a BF point of view since I've been EPing (and now supplementing) since LO was a month old and it's been all bottles all the time at our house. We've moved up nipple sizes a few times and he is now on the number 3 Avent ones (not sure what age that corresponds to, but I think it's the 6m+ size). Whenever we moved up sizes, the indicators for us that it was time were:

1) LO frequently collapsing the nipple by sucking too hard

2) LO showing signs of being frustrated, letting go of the bottle, crying for it, latching on it again enthusiastically, repeat,

3) It taking longer for him to finish the same amount of milk than it used to, while sucking the entire time (not taking breaks to play, look at the cat, etc.)

He is currently distracted a lot, but I don't think it's a nipple size issue this time. He just wants to look around at stuff and turn for every noise, and play as soon as the worst hunger pangs are gone. I often have to give him a 4oz bottle in two 2oz sessions - he'll eat half the bottle in 3-5 minutes, get too distracted to keep going, I'll let him play for a while, then offer the rest 20-30 minutes later (while it's still good) and he'll finish that in another 3-5 minutes. He's not collapsing the nipple though and we he does focus on eating, he gets the milk out as efficiently as he did before, so we're staying on the current size.

TrueBeliever925 · April 2014

It's worth a shot to try a medium flow nipple. Our LO got bored when it was time to move up. He would look around, stop nursing the bottle, grab at the nipple to make it go faster.

Also, once we switched he only used the medium flow for a couple of weeks before switching to fast flow.

V&G101808 · April 2014

I would probably move up a size... If he isn't get the milk fast enough it can cause him to get distracted/anxious.

Distracted 8-month-old still on NB nipple - time to move up?

Re: Distracted 8-month-old still on NB nipple - time to move up?

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