Hi Laranna,

I know each baby is different but in the first three weeks of my DS's life I introduced him to my boobs, an Avent bottle and teat, a Pigeon peristaltic bottle and teat, a dummy AND a nipple shield. We had early issues with BFing and him gaining weight, so I had to give him EBM. You'd think it would be total confusion for him, but luckily for us, DS was (and still is) an adaptable bub and after three weeks of taking EBM via a bottle and me persisting with BFing, he became a fully fledged booby baby and is gaining loads of weight. It appears there was no nipple confusion at all with him. He's still happy to take a bottle and he still sucks on his "dum dum" .

If you go down the path of bottles ... we found the Pigeon bottles and teats to be the best for us - DS seems to suck in less air. Our CHN gave them the thumbs up too.

I was keen to introduce DS to a bottle early on so that DS could learn he could feed from a bottle and not just my boobs. It meant that he didn't see me as the only food source, and dad could feed him as well. After our early EBM efforts, DH gives DS one bottle feed per evening while I express and freeze my BM. Mind you, I've used zip lock bags to store the EBM in too, cos that's what the midwife told us to use in our ante-natal classes!

Good luck with things.
Andie