Bottle Play & Paced Feeding: Tips for Infant Feeding

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• This helps excite your baby for feeding times as well as stimulate them to suck

• Use rooting reflex → brush bottle nipple in a downwards motion across lips to encourage jaw opening and tongue out

• Use suck reflex → “tickle” roof of mouth with tip of bottle nipple to encourage non-nutritive suck 

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• Hold bottle sideways / horizontal

• The nipple should only be filled half way with milk

• Follow your baby’s cues: if they want to stop, let them, don’t force them to finish a bottle

  • Signs of Fullness: turning away from bottle, closing their mouth, falling asleep

• This type of feeding helps your baby take breaks because feeding is tiring

• Pausing to burp your baby can help pace them and allow them to re-initiate feeding if they are still hungry

• Aim for 1oz per 5 min, making total feed time take around 15-30 min
  
  

Bottle Feeding Positions to Try:

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• Finding the best bottle and nipple flow for your baby can take time

  • Work with your therapist to find what works best

• Bottle play at feeds and just using the nipple between feeds can help your baby become used to the nipple and prevent oral aversion