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Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Many Stages of Nipples-Part 1

Wanting to be a totally cool and hip mom to be, I decided to take a prenatal yoga class when I was pregnant with my first son. Never mind the fact that normally I can barely touch my toes and at that point it looked like I had a basketball under my shirt, I thought yoga would be a great form of exercise and fun. Okay, really what I thought was it was a great opportunity to socialize while I could tell myself I was doing something healthy and thus worthy of eating extra Cheetohs.

It was also during this time that I had just completed all my childbirth classes and had gone to a breastfeeding class offered at the hospital. Armed with all this parenting knowledge and my brand-new subscriptions to my parenting magazines, I felt sure that I was ready for the challenge of parenthood. (Pause for laughter at remembering how naive I was). Which is why I was so surprised when we were sitting peacefully in our yoga poses and the yoga teacher casually told us an amusing story about how she didn’t know that women had more than one hole in their nipples. Excuse me? Could you please repeat that? Half of the class found this story funny. The other half of us had our mouths open in shock because we too had no idea that we had multiple holes in our nipples. I believe it's the "Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy" that describes the nipple holes as a sprinkler system. Trust me, if you've ever watched yourself pump milk with an electric pump, it's an excellent description.

Not only did the hospital do a very poor job on the breastfeeding class (you would have thought that they would have mentioned the nipples holes and believe if they have I would have definitely remembered as would the people in my yoga class who didn't know because we all took the same breastfeeding class), but they did an even worse job at explaining bottle nipples. No surprise there since they have a vested interest in breastfeeding. Or maybe they felt that bottle-feeding was self-explanatory. Or maybe they just knew that us bottle feeders were so brilliant that we would be able to figure it out on our own. Kidding! Like I said the education was pretty lacking to begin with so I wouldn't be surprised. You certainly don't see how to bottle-feed too frequently in parenting magazines. Yet, there is talk about how bottle fed kids can eat too much formula. Hmmm...just a thought here but maybe it's because there really isn't any good information out there, so you might not know if you're using a nipple that's flowing too fast. I recently talked to another mom who had bottle fed her son and was pregnant with the second. She had no idea what the nipple stages were so she just used the newborn stage the whole time.

When I decided to start bottle-feeding my son, I was in a bit of denial, to put it lightly, that I couldn't breastfeed and was having a hard time accepting it. Imagine my surprise when I found out that bottle nipples come in different "stages". What the heck did they mean by "stage"? I guess that sounds better than nipple holes. This of course threw me into a panic. I immediately called up my cousin who had bottle fed two kids and asked her what it meant. Why was bottle-feeding so difficult? So here, dear bottle feeders, is what she told me. This is indirectly verified on the packaging on most nipples. Meaning that is that it will say "Stage 1: 0-3 months." The rest is from trial, error, and talking to other moms and pediatricians.

1) Stage 1: this is for newborns. There is only one hole in this nipple so that the formula will come out very slowly. This is important because otherwise the newborn can choke. Any newborn bottle (translation small bottle) will come with this
2) Stage 2: This for babies 3-6 months old and these nipples have 2 holes. Thus, the formula comes out faster.
3) Stage 3: This is for babies over 6 months. I never used these with my older son because we moved onto sippy cups, but presumably these nipples have 3 holes.
4) The Y-cut: This is a nipple where the hole is cut wide to so the baby can drink thicker drinks such as formula with a little bit of cereal in it.

Supposedly, you know that your child is ready to move onto the next stage when he starts taking longer than a half an hour to feed or if he seems frustrated that the fluid isn't coming out fast enough. These are both signs that my younger son displays so I was thrilled when his pediatrician gave me the okay to switch the nipples. Unfortunately, when I tried giving him the stage 2 nipples this week, he was offended by them. Yes, my 11 week old acted like I had committed a great crime and refused to use them. Thus, I am back to doing 30-45 minute feedings with the stage 1 nipple.

A. Eliot's Lesson Learned: Talk to your baby's pediatrician about what stage nipple he (the baby not the doctor) should be using.

Labels: Bottles, Formula

posted by Alex Elliot @ 10:03 PM 4 comments

4 Comments:

At 9/15/2006 9:08 AM, Suzanne said…

Wow, I had no idea that nipples change to allow different amount of fluid to come out. So interesting! Obviously, it makes sense, but I never thought about it before. I am so naive.

Thanks for your frank sharing of info.
At 9/15/2006 6:45 PM, bethandrobert said…

hmph... so, what do I do now that I have this info? We have just used the same nipple from the start!!! Should I switch and try a stage 2? Or wait and try a stage 3 since my dear daughter is moving towards 6 months. Our nipples (bottle, that is) only have one hole. The thing is, everyone needs this info... and you are right I haven't come across it in my parenting magazines or anywhere else. Even though I breastfeed, since my daughter is in daycare, 70% of her feedings are with a bottle. She downs it in about 3-5 minutes. The first time I saw it, I was shocked. It takes her at least twice as long to nurse... I couldn't believe all that milk could vanish so quickly!!
At 9/15/2006 6:52 PM, A. Elliot said…

If she takes the bottle in 3-5 minutes, I would keep using whatever nipples you're currently using and then bring it up with her doctor the next time you see her if you're concerned. The nipple stage is only a problem if it is taking the baby a really long time to eat and/or seems frustrated that the liquid is coming out so slowly or if they are choking/having difficulty swallowing because the fluid is coming out too fast.
At 9/17/2006 9:34 PM, CeCe said…

Hey there. I found you via blog chicks. I just joined, but I don't think my blog is listed yet. Anyway, my kid is 14 months and still uses stage one nipples. We've tried faster flow nipples, but she makes a huge mess. The slow flow ones seem to work for her.

I like your blog.

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Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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