Does Nipple Confusion Really Exist?

When my husband and I took our childbirth and breastfeeding classes at Medical Center of Plano before our daughter was born, they all warned us that if we want to successfully breastfeed we should abstain from giving her any bottles and pacifiers until she has established a successful nursing routine.Well, as is Becca's nursing routine was pretty terrible, she couldn't latch correctly for the life of her (nor with the help of the outstanding around the clock lactation consulting we received in the hospital). She rapidly lost weight in the first few days, more than the "acceptable" 10%. Worried that she was struggling to get enough nutrition, her pediatrician recommended supplementing with formula and we agreed. Then we figured, so much for our plan not to create the nipple confusion that we were warned about. Once this barrier was broken we figured we were also open to giving her a pacifier. Seeing how much this soothed her we were happy we made that choice. We know it will be tough to wean her off of it (I have several friends who have struggled terribly with that) but if she's soothed now, I'm happy. We also have used several different shapes and sizes of nipples when bottlefeeding (both formula and pumped milk), including the Similac nipple, the Medela nipple, the Avent nipple and a couple others. Pretty much whatever we have received free samples of in the mail or from the hospital. We are equal opportunity freebie recipients. And thankfully, Becca happily drank from them all.

Making the rounds on Monday was this article saying that feelings are beginning to change when it comes to nipple confusion and that its possible that pacifiers may even help with breast-feeding. I believe there was indeed a connection between her use of the pacifier in her first few weeks that helped her learn to establish a suck and is one of the reasons that I was able to reintroduce Becca to nursing at 8 weeks, something she hadn't successfully done since we had left the hospital.

So what do you think? Does nipple confusion really exist? What was your experience with your little one?

New Mommies Have Lots Of Questions

As a new Mommy (daughter Becca was born in February 2012), I had questions about picking a pediatrician, diaper sizes, tummy time and more, so I have been crowdsourcing the answers using my Twitter Followers and Facebook Friends. Thankfully, many of my friends are parents themselves and LOVE offering free advice (who doesn't?). Don't worry. I know that with free advice you get what you pay for, but I'm enjoying hearing all the different opinions. This has helped me and my husband Evan make many educated decisions for our little girl.

Becoming a Mommy for the first time at 32, I've had the benefit of seeing many of my friends become parents (making me a Savvy Auntie to their little ones). For the past decade I've been carefully watching people, friends and strangers, parenting their children. I've seen some genius parenting moves (like hiding vegetables in foods that their kiddos love to eat like brownies and mac and cheese), and I've seen some, in my opinion, bonehead moves that I plan to avoid. I like to think my friends have already helped shape my own parenting style. A style I'd characterize as laid back but cautious.

I've attended brises (even went to one Pidyon HaBen), baby namings, birthday parties, helped during bathtime and I was even there once when a couple of the cutest twin Mamalehs I've ever met experienced their first taste of rice cereal (it was a fun and unsurprisingly messy experience). Yet, I had never really spent any long periods of time around children by myself. I was the baby in my family and babysitting was never my thing as a teenager. So being around an infant 24 hours a day was an eye opening experience. I had no real idea how to change a diaper (I always opted out of that job when a poopy diaper surfaced at a friend's house) and I certainly didn't know how to breastfeed, bathe or dress a newborn. It was a terrifying first week. Thankfully my husband showed no fear and took care of most of the jobs that I was too scared to do (except for breastfeeding obviously. He just stood there with a pained look in his eyes watching me struggle to get my baby to latch). Then I realized, hey, most of my friends have done this before, let me ask them for tips. And advice they gave (mostly good, some bad).

So I'll likely come back here too with my questions and personal experiences and I hope you will be there to provide me with some answers! Thanks for reading!