Breast is best
Breast milk is the best milk for babies. Breast milk provides the ideal balanced nutrition and protection for your baby. Maternal nutritional requirements increase during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Therefore mothers’ diets should include a wide variety of nutritious food and healthy snacks.
If you are considering bottle feeding, always seek professional advice as once bottle feeding has commenced it can be difficult to revert to breast feeding. Partial bottle feeding may also adversely affect breastfeeding by reducing the supply of breast milk. Always use and prepare infant formula as directed by the manufacturer; unnecessary or improper use of infant formula can be hazardous to the health of your baby.
Before using infant formula, always consider the social and financial implications, such as issues of convenience and cost to the household of using infant formula for at least 12 months. If you are considering using infant formula, it is important to discuss this with a health professional.
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Less of the bottle, more of the cup: 12 months on
By now your little one is likely to be using their bottle less (or they’ve stopped completely) and started using a cup.
Getting the hang of this can take some time, but you can buy trainer cups to help them make the transition. These are cups or tumblers with handles, and special no-spill valves to drink from.
The Heinz Baby Basics range has some good options, including a trainer cup that comes with three different lid options to help them progress.
If you can go for an open or a free-flow cup without a valve (like the final stage of the trainer cup) that’s even better. This will help your baby learn to sip properly, and it’s a lot better for their teeth.
Here are a few tips to help your toddler learn
- Give your baby sips of water from a cup with their meals, as well as between meals.
- Try slowly cutting out their bottle feeds, one meal at a time and get them to use a cup instead.
- Keep at it! Getting them to use a cup every day is the key.
A few benefits of using a cup are:
- Less decay – sipping sweet drinks from bottle is a major culprit of tooth decay in babies and toddlers. A cup is much better.
- Using a cup can help improve your toddler’s hand eye coordination.
- Cups are the great time saver. They’re much quicker and easier to clean than bottles.