My baby doesn't suck!

No, I'm not defending her character, I'm mourning the lack of an important skill for breastfeeding.

There's lots of resources out there on the internet for teaching your breastfeeding baby how to use a bottle. There isn't hardly anything for getting a bottle fed baby to get back on the breast. Because of her time in the NICU, she had the CPAP machine, feeding tubes, and bottles. Then we had to supplement the breastmilk I pumped, so we still primarily used the bottle for feeding. Breastfeeding practice sessions were short and generally frustrating.

So now that we are cleared to stop fortifying her milk, we're trying to switch off the bottle. After a week of trying, I finally gave in and called the lactation consultant monday. We went in today, she watched us try, stuck her finger in Ru's mouth for a minute and let her suck on it, then informed me she doesn't do it right. Apparently she does little tongue thrusts rather than a full undulating towards the back sort of motion.

So to correct this, we have a series of exercises to practice with her involving more of our fingers in her mouth. We do those before every feeding, then feed her with a special bottle that simulates the breast better. (5 bucks each at babies r us...)

Brian is trying to feed her right now, and it's not going so well. I'm guessing we may need to keep the old bottles handy for after we've practiced this for a while. It may be a slow transition...