Bottle feeding gives dad and other family members the chance to get close to baby. Use the time for cuddling and interaction; nourishment needn’t come from the breast to come with love.
BOTTLE FEEDING WITH EASE
If you’ve had some experience bottle feeding a young infant—either a sibling, a baby-sitting charge, or a friend’s baby—chances are the correct technique will come back to you (like riding a bike) virtually the moment you hold your baby in your arms. If you’re a first-timer—or if you just want to bone up on bottle-feeding basics—the following step-by-step tips should help:
Give notice. Let baby know that “formula’s on” by stroking his or her cheek with your finger or the tip of the nipple. That will encourage your baby to “root,” turning in the direction of the stroke.
Then place the nipple gently between baby’s lips and, hopefully, sucking will begin. If baby still doesn’t get the picture, a drop of formula on the lips should clue him or her in.
Make air the enemy. Tilt the bottle up so that formula always fills the nipple completely. If you don’t, and air fills part of it, baby will be chasing formula down with air—a recipe for gassiness, which will make both of you miserable. Anti-air precautions aren’t necessary, however, if you’re using disposable bottle liners, which automatically deflate (eliminating air pockets), or if you’re using angled bottles that keep the formula pooled near the nipple.
Start slow. Don’t be concerned if your baby doesn’t seem to take much formula at first. The newborn’s need for nutrition is minimal for a few days after birth—a breastfed baby, on orders from Mother Nature, receives only a teaspoonful of colostrum at each feeding during this time. If
you’re in the hospital, the nursery will probably provide you with full 4-ounce bottles, but don’t expect them to be drained. A baby who falls asleep after taking just half an ounce or so is probably saying, “I’ve had enough.” On the other hand, if baby doesn’t fall asleep but turns away from the bottle fussily after just a few minutes of nipping, it’s more likely a matter of gas than overfilling. In that case, don’t give up without a bubble. If after a good burping (see page 140) the nipple is still rejected, take that as your signal the meal is over. (See page 108 for more details on how much formula to feed.)
Check your speed. Be certain that formula isn’t coming through the nipple too quickly or too slowly. Nipples are available in different sizes for babies’ different sizes and age; a newborn nipple dispenses milk more slowly, which is usually perfect for a baby who’s just getting the hang of sucking (and whose appetite is still tender). You can check the speed of the nipples you’re using by giving the bottle, turned upside down, a few quick shakes. If milk pours or spurts out, it’s
flowing too quickly; if just a drop or two escapes, too slowly. If you get a little spray, and then some drops, the flow is just about right. But the very best way to test the flow is by observing the little mouth it’s flowing into. If there’s a lot of gulping and sputtering going on, and milk is always dripping out of the corners of baby’s mouth, the flow is too fast. If baby seems to work very hard at sucking for a few moments, then seems frustrated (possibly letting go of the nipple to complain), the flow’s too slow. Sometimes, a flow problem has less to do with the size of the nipple than with the way the cap is fastened. A very tight cap inhibits flow by creating a partial vacuum; loosening it up a bit may make the formula flow more freely.
Minimize midnight hassles. Make night feedings less of an ordeal by investing in a bedside bottle holder, which keeps baby’s bottle safely chilled until ready to use and then warms it to room temperature in minutes. Or keep a bottle on ice, champagne-style, in the nursery (or by your bed), ready to serve cold or to warm under the bathroom tap when baby starts fussing for a feeding.
What You May Be Concerned About
BIRTHWEIGHT
“My friends all seem to be having babies that weigh 8 and 9 pounds at birth. Mine weighed in at a little over 6ẵ pounds at full term. She’s healthy, but she seems so small.”
Just like healthy adults, healthy babies come in all kinds of packages—long and lanky, big and bulky, slight and slender. And more often than not, a baby can thank the adults in her life for her birth stats;
the laws of genetics dictate that large parents generally have large children and small parents
generally have small children (though when dad’s large and mom’s small, the progeny are more likely to follow in mom’s smaller footsteps, at least at birth). Mom’s own birth-weight can also influence her offspring’s. Still another factor is a baby’s sex: Girls tend to weigh in lighter and measure in shorter than boys do. And though there is a laundry list of other factors that can affect a baby’s size at birth—such as what mom ate during pregnancy and how much weight she gained—the only factor that matters now is that your baby is completely healthy. And, in fact, a petite 6ẵ pounder can be every bit as vigorous as a chubby 8 or 9 pounder.
Keep in mind, too, that some babies who start out small quickly outpace their peers on the growth
charts as they start catching up to their genetic potential. (For more on this, see page 302.) In the
meantime, enjoy your healthy baby while she’s still a relatively light load. It won’t be long before just hearing the words “Carry me!” from your strapping preschooler will make your back start aching.
BONDING
“I had an emergency cesarean and they whisked my baby away to the ICU before I had a chance to bond with her. Could this affect our relationship?”
Bonding at birth is an idea whose time has come—and, by now, should be gone. That’s because the theory, first suggested in the 1970s, that a mother-baby relationship will be better when the two spend sixteen hours of the first twenty-four in close loving contact, just hasn’t held up in research or in
practice.
Without a doubt, good things have come from the bonding theory. Because of it, hospitals now encourage new parents to hold their babies moments after birth, and to cuddle and nurse them for anywhere from ten minutes to an hour or more, instead of dispatching the newborn off to the nursery the instant the cord is cut. This encounter gives mother, father, and baby a chance to make early contact, skin to skin, eye to eye—definitely a change for the better. On the other hand, the concept leaves many parents who aren’t able to hold their babies immediately after birth (either because they had emergency surgical deliveries or traumatic vaginal births, or because the infants arrived in need of special care) feeling as though they’ve missed the chance of a lifetime to foster a close relationship with their offspring.
But not only do many experts believe that bonding doesn’t have to be firmly established at birth, most dispute that it can be. Freshly delivered infants come equipped with all their senses; they’re capable of making eye contact—and even of recognizing their mother’s voice (though they won’t recognize her face until somewhere around three months). They’re also alert in the hour right after birth, which makes this an especially good time for that first official get-together with their parents.
But because they’re not capable of retaining these experiences—as wonderful as they are—those first few moments can’t make or break future relationships. A new mother will certainly remember that special first meeting, but she may not feel an immediate bond with her baby for a variety of reasons:
exhaustion from a long labor and delivery, grogginess from medication, pain from cramping or an incision, a feeling of being overwhelmed by the enormous responsibility that’s just been handed her, or simply a lack of preparation for the experience of holding and caring for a newborn.
The first few moments a parent and baby spend together after birth are important—but no more important than the hours, and days, and weeks, and years that lie ahead. They mark only the beginning of the long and complex process of getting to know and love each other. And this beginning can just as well take place hours after birth in a hospital bed, or through the portholes of an incubator, or even weeks later at home. When your parents and grandparents were born, they probably saw little of their mothers and even less of their fathers until they went home (usually ten days after birth), and the vast majority of that generation grew up with strong, loving family ties. Mothers who have the chance to bond at birth with one child and not with another usually report no difference in their feelings toward the children. And adoptive parents, who often don’t meet their babies until hospital discharge (or even much later), can foster bonds as strong as those of birth parents who met their infants moments after delivery.
The kind of love that lasts a lifetime can’t magically evolve in a few hours, or even a few days. In
fact, experts believe that it doesn’t completely take hold until somewhere in the second half of the baby’s first year. The first moments after birth may become a cherished memory for some, but for others they may be just a blur. Either way, these moments don’t indelibly color the character and quality of your future relationship.
The complicated process of parent-child bonding actually begins for parents during pregnancy, when attitudes and feelings toward the baby start developing. The relationship continues to evolve and change all through infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and even into adulthood. So relax.
There’s lots of time to tie those bonds that bind.
“I’ve been told that bonding at birth brings mother and baby closer together. I held my new daughter for nearly an hour right after delivery, but she seemed like a stranger to me then, and still does now, three days later.”
Love at first sight is a concept that flourishes in novels and movies but rarely materializes in real life.
The kind of love that lasts a lifetime usually requires time, nurturing, and plenty of patience to develop and deepen. And that’s just as true for parental love as it is for romantic love.
Physical closeness between parent and child immediately after birth does not guarantee instant emotional closeness. Those first postpartum moments aren’t automatically bathed in a glow of
maternal (or paternal) love. In fact, the first sensation a woman experiences after birth is just as likely to be relief as it is love—relief that the baby is normal and, especially if her labor was difficult, that the ordeal is over. It’s not at all unusual to regard that squalling and unsociable infant as a stranger with very little connection to the cozy, idealized baby you carried for nine months—and to feel little more than neutral toward her. One study has found that it took an average of over two weeks (and often as long as nine weeks) for mothers to begin having strongly positive feelings toward their newborns.
FOR FATHERS ONLY: BECOMING ENGROSSED
While bonding is a process that involves both parents, fathers apparently have their own way of becoming close to their new infants—and researchers have even given it a name of its own:
engrossment. Engrossment applies not only to what a father does for his baby (such as holding, comforting, rocking, massaging) and the unique way that he does it (fathers have a touch that’s different from mothers’, a difference babies respond to), but also what the baby does for his or her father (such as bringing out his sensitive, nurturing side). For more on fathering, see chapter 24.
Just how a woman reacts to her newborn at their first meeting may depend on a variety of factors:
the length and intensity of her labor; whether she received medication during labor; her previous experience (or lack of it) with infants; her feelings about having a child; her relationship with her spouse; extraneous worries that may preoccupy her; her general health; and probably most important of all, her personality.
Your reaction is normal for you. And as long as you feel an increasing sense of comfort and
attachment as the days go by, you can relax. Some of the best relationships get off to the slowest
starts. Give yourself and your baby a chance to get to know and appreciate each other, and let the love grow unhurriedly.
If you don’t feel a growing closeness after a few weeks, however, or if you feel anger or antipathy toward your baby, talk to your practitioner. It’s possible that you’re suffering from postpartum
depression, especially if you’re experiencing other symptoms of the condition. If that’s the case, treatment is important not just for your health but also for the well-being of your baby and your relationship with her. See page 672 for more.
WEIGHT LOSS
“I expected my baby to lose some weight in the hospital, but she dropped from 7ẵ pounds to 6 pounds 14 ounces. Isn’t that excessive?”
New parents, eager to start issuing reports on their baby’s progress in the weight-gain department, are often disappointed when their babies check out of the hospital weighing considerably less than when they checked in. But nearly all newborns are destined to lose some of their birthweight (usually between 5 and 10 percent) in the first five days of life—not as a result of fad dieting in the nursery, but because of normal postdelivery fluid loss, which is not immediately recouped, since babies need and take in little food during this time. Breastfed babies, who consume only teaspoons at a time of the premilk colostrum, generally lose more than bottle-fed babies. Most newborns have stopped losing by the fifth day and have regained or surpassed their birthweight by ten to fourteen days of age—when you can start issuing those bulletins.
BABY’S LOOKS
“People ask me whether the baby looks like me or my husband. Neither one of us has a pointy head, puffy eyes, an ear that bends forward, and a pushed-in nose. When will he start looking better?”
There’s a good reason why two- and three-month-old babies are used to portray newborns in movies and television commercials: Most newborns are not exactly photogenic. And though parental love is blinder than most, even parents who are head over heels can’t help but notice the many imperfections of their newborn’s appearance. Fortunately, most of the newborn characteristics that will keep your baby from costarring in films and selling diapers on TV are temporary.
The features you’re describing weren’t inherited from some distant pointy-headed, puffy-eyed, flap-eared relative. They were acquired during your baby’s stay in the cramped quarters of your uterus, during the stormy passage through your bony pelvis in preparation for birth, and during his final traumatic trip through the narrow confines of your birth canal during delivery.
If it weren’t for the miraculous design of the fetal head—with the skull bones not fully fused, allowing them to be pushed and molded as the baby makes its descent—there would be many more surgical deliveries. So be thankful for the pointy little head that came with your vaginal delivery, and rest assured that the skull will just as miraculously return to cherubic roundness within a few days or so.
The swelling around your baby’s eyes is also due, at least in part, to the beating he took on his
fantastic voyage into the world. (Another contributing factor might be the antibiotic ointment placed in your baby’s eyes to prevent gonococcal or chlamydial infection.) Some have postulated that this
swelling serves as natural protection for newborns, whose eyes are being exposed to light for the first time. The worry that the puffiness may interfere with a baby’s ability to see mommy and daddy,
making that first eye-to-eye contact impossible, is unfounded. Though he can’t distinguish one from another, a newborn can make out blurry faces at birth—even through swollen lids.
The bent ear is probably another outcome of the crowding your baby experienced in the uterus. As a fetus grows and becomes more snugly lodged in his mother’s cozy amniotic sac, an ear that happens to get pushed forward may stay that way even after birth. But this is only temporary. Taping it back won’t help, say the experts, and the tape might cause irritation, but you can speed the return to normal ear positioning by being sure the ear is back against the head when putting baby (supervised) on his side to play. Some ears, of course, are genetically destined to stand out—but if that’s the case, both generally do, right from the start.
The pushed-in nose is very likely a result of a tight squeeze during labor and delivery, and should return to normal naturally. But because baby noses are so different from the adult variety (the bridge is broad, almost nonexistent, the shape often nondescript), it may still be a while before you can tell whose nose your baby has.
EYE COLOR
“I was hoping my baby would have green eyes like my husband, but her eyes seem to be a dark grayish color. Is there any chance that they’ll turn?”
The favorite guessing game of pregnancy—will it be a boy or a girl?—is replaced by another in the first few months of a baby’s life—what color will her eyes turn out to be?
It’s definitely too early to call now. Most Caucasian babies are born with dark blue or slate- colored eyes; most dark-skinned infants with dark, usually brown, eyes. While the dark eyes of the darker-skinned babies will stay dark, the eye color of Caucasian babies may go through a number of changes (making the betting more lively) before becoming set somewhere between three and six months, or even later. And since pigmentation of the iris may continue increasing during the entire first year, the depth of color may not be evident until around baby’s first birthday.
BLOODSHOT EYES
“The whites of my newborn’s eyes look bloodshot. Is this an infection?”
It’s not the late hours that newborns keep that often give their eyes that bloodshot look (no, that would be why your eyes will be looking so red for the next few months). Rather, it’s a harmless condition that occurs when there is trauma to the eyeball—often in the form of broken blood vessels—during a vaginal delivery. (Actually, many new mothers who put in a lot of pushing time during delivery sport matching broken blood vessels in their eyes.) Like a skin bruise, the discoloration disappears in a few days and does not indicate there has been any damage to your baby’s eyes.
EYE OINTMENT
“Why does my newborn have ointment in his eyes, and how long will it blur his vision?”