Conference moira::parenting_v3

    I'm only going on my daughter, but she drinks 6 ounces in about 10
    minutes.  Gina is 9 months old, but has always been a fast drinker. 
    And now she eats very quickly too.
    
    How old is your daughter?  Might the nipple holes be too small?  Is she
    frustrated with the flow?
    
    It may just be that she is a slower eater than you like...
    
    The fact that she spits up when she eats faster is probably an
    indication that she is eating at the rate that is best for her when she
    eats slower.
    
    I'm sure that you didn't want to hear this!  Maybe someone else will
    have more ideas.
    
    judy

    I'd try making the nipple holes a little bigger.  Just a bit though,
    and when you do that, try to burp her more frequently.
    
    For my boys, when they were drinking, there was a steady stream of air
    bubbles going back into the bottle - that's how I could tell.  I used
    to have the nipples JUST 'tight' (actually quite loose by everyone
    else's standards), and we lost some formula, but not a lot.  Any
    tighter and they would create a vacuum, and you know where that leads.
    
    Another possibility, that we ran into, is that possibly the nipple is
    clogging while she's drinking, and then when you loosen the nipple to
    allow air to enter, you're unblocking the clog.  We had this experience
    using powdered formula, and no matter *WHAT* we did, we always got
    lumps.  And, of course, the lumps settled in the nipple hole.  We
    switched to liquid concentrate, and is was MUCH worth the extra expense
    to be able to get back to bed in a 1/2 hour.
    
    By my kids, I'd say they took about 1/2 the time it takes your daughter
    (when the formula was flowing smooth, that is!!).
    
    Patty
    

    This is just a suggestion because each baby is different...
    When she drinks fast you might trying burping her after every two
    ounces or so.  I always had to burp my daughter at least halfway
    thru the bottle or it all came back up.
    

    One more point .... with both of our kids, when we used the ortho
    nipples we got EVERYTHING back, ALL the time.  We switched to plain old
    'bad-for-your-teeth' (gee, MY teeth are fine and I had 'em as a baby)
    nipples, and neither kid spit up.  May be worth a shot to increase that
    flow!
    

Liz,

At 5 weeks, Sammy would down a 6 oz bottle in about 10 minutes
and about 15 minutes during the day. There was even a time when
he fell asleep in the middle of his feeding; those were stories
worth remembering.

sigh, he'll be 3 in 3 months!

calvin

Liz,
    David (my first) was a very fast eater.  We didn't know how great that
    was until Gregor was born!  Gregor (aka "the world's slowest eater")
    consistently took around 1 1/2 hours per feeding.  My husband and my
    mother thought that meant I was doing something wrong, but after trying
    various things, I concluded that he was just a slow eater!  He never was
    a very "sucky" baby, and I think that was part of the reason.  Now that
    he's eating solids, he eats about as fast as his older brother did at
    the same age.  What helped me the most was to keep in mind that they
    are only on an all-liquid diet for a relatively short time.  (Both of
    my kids started solids at around 3 months - they were giving clear
    signals of being ready at that age.)  If somebody else can do some of
    the night feedings, that helps, too.  That didn't work for me - my husband
    used to do David's 10 pm feeding, but he wasn't willing to sit with Gregor
    for an hour and a half to feed him then.  Oh, well.

							cheryl

My little girl was a very slow feeder - when she was a few weeks old it took 
about an hour to get 3oz formula down her.  I worried about it, but she kept
putting on weight, so I just decided that she was a slow eater (20 months later
she still is a slow eater, but fortunately I don't have to feed her anymore).  
I tried making the holes in the nipples larger, and bought just about every
sort of nipple I could, but nothing really made a difference - except that if 
hole was too big Alison would bring all the formula back up again. I found that 
burping her and changing her diaper half was through the feed  helped a bit.  

It did get better as she got older, but she never got to the "bottle of formula
in 10 minutes" rate - even at 6 months old!

Oh, I can remember those hour long, often twice nightly vigils very well.  I 
can also remember taking an hour to get a nighttime feed down her, having all 
the feed come back up all over me, Alison crying because she was still hungry 
and then taking another hour to feed again..  Not one of our best moments!

As always, check with your doctor, but if your daughter is happy and healthy 
and gaining weight, then sit sounds like she's just a slow feeder - which 
doesn't make it any better for you, though.  This too does pass, but in the 
meantime, you have my sympathy!

- Janet

Kat used to take about 45 minutes to drink 6 oz. I used to go to sleep
while she was eating. 

I never could get the orthopedic nipples to work right, and I tried them
with three kids.  They were always collapsing or leaking.  

I suspect there's a connection between the slowness, the collapsing nipple,
and the food coming back up.  If she's sucking hard on a collapsed nipple,
she's not getting as much food, and she's also taking in a lot more air.
Burping will help the bubble problem -- I know, when she's taking 
forever to eat, who wants to prolong it with a burping?  Try making the
hole bigger.  Steven sucked so hard we even used the cross-cut nipples, 
the ones with the big "x" in them for juices and other thick liquids, so
he could drink fast enough.

--bonnie

Just as I suspected, each child eats at their own pace!  Thanks.
I tried making one nipple hole a little larger and she seems
to sputter and get too much.  I'll use it later when she's
drinking something thicker (like chocolate milk :-).  )

Liz

    this is a little late and somewhat off the point.. but...
    
    you mentioned that how tight the top was on the bottle had some effect
    on the baby?? .. well, I'll admit I'm an ignorant first time mum... and
    that things seem very different this side of the pond... but it's the
    first time I've heard about this. Sometimes Chrsitopher blows vast
    amounts of bubbles back into his bottle (makes his milk look like a
    milk-shake!) and other times I have to check that he's even drinking it
    
    ... so what does it all mean???
    
    Ann

    Effect on some babies, anyway -- it couldn't have mattered less to
    David, but it was critical for Kat and David.  Generally I don't
    think it means very much.  I've only noticed the tightness making
    a difference on Evenflo rubber nipples; the silicon ones don't
    matter and the Gerber nipples are erratic about it.  No other
    personal experience.  
    
    It's just one of a hundred tiny things you can try adjusting for a
    particular baby if the feedings aren't going as smoothly as they
    might . . .
    
    --bonnie

Just an update, I changed to the NUKs for older babies and they work
just great!  Not too fast, not too slow.  Rachel can now down about 7-8
ounces in 20-30 minutes!

As a side note, on the "cereal in the bottle" note, I have a PUR nipple
that works great for getting cereal and watered down baby food from a 
bottle.

Liz

    
    
    	RE: Liz
    	>I have a PUR nipple that works great for getting cereal
    	>and watered down baby food from a bottle.
    
    	WHERE did you find this?  I'm trying to get my daughter
    	to take a bit of cereal mixed with her formula (she
    	WAILS when it's time to burp her and I don't feel just
    	formula is adequate anymore) but the blasted nipple
    	just doesn't want to cooperate with me.
    
    	Her pediatrician suggested cross cutting the nipple but
    	it isn't working.  I don't want a long fight on my hand
    	with these nipples at 5:30 every morning.  Sheesh. (8
    
    	Thanks!
    	/Kim
    	

Actually, I think I lied, it's a MAM and I got it from a magazine ad
for SASSY/MAM pacifiers and nipples in one of the baby magazines.
They had a thing where you could send a dollar and get a pacifier
and a bottle nipple.  I've also seen them at Toys-R-Us.

Liz

    Does anyone know of a nurser/bottle (ie.not disposable) that can hold
    the wider nipples made for the Playtex disposable nurser?  After 9
    weeks of the 'battle of the bottle' and many dollars spent on
    every imaginable nipple, bottle... my son has finally settled on the
    Platex orthodontic nipple.  I don't care for the disposable bottles
    and would like a standard nurser.
    
    				Thanks,
    				Mary