Where to start with bottle feeding a Tubie?

**Disclaimer: we are not medical professionals or therapists.  We did what we were comfortable with as long as we felt he wasn’t in danger.  If you are not comfortable then you should follow what your doctor or therapists advise only**

When we left the hospital with Little A on the g-tube, it was very scary not knowing what the exact steps would be to get him drinking from a bottle.  In the NICU we were not allowed to feed him a bottle, the speech-swallow therapist was the only one. We were allowed to dip his pacifier in the milk and give him tastes.  This is what we left the hospital doing. When Little A appeared to “master” that and seemed to enjoy it, we moved onto the next logical step for ourselves. (Meanwhile we were in the process of setting up Early Intervention, which in NY can provide some help with feeding, but we weren’t going to wait around until this started).  Next we took a bottle nipple and filled it with a few drops of the milk and allowed him to suck. For the most part he did really well. Maybe there were a couple of times that he coughed because it didn’t go down quite right, but we immediately stopped, sat him up and patted his back and he was able to catch his breath (when this happened, we usually stopped for that moment and tried again later in the day).  We gave him as many chances to drink this way as he wanted. It not only gave him the taste of milk so he didn’t get an aversion, but it also gave him the chance to practice his coordination of sucking, swallowing and breathing. When Little A was doing well with drinking about 8 mL from the nipple and seemed to want more, we moved onto our next step. We created our own tiny bottle using the nipple that comes with the sample formula and a 30mL tube that came with my medals breast pump. We did this instead of just using a regular bottle because it allowed us to have control of the flow. We slowly added more milk 10mL, 15mL, etc. until we reached 30mL (1oz) all over a couple of weeks.  Now I was getting excited, he could drink a whole ounce (although it took him 30-45 minutes to do so). Now almost 2 months old, and we had him drinking a small amount from a bottle. When he mastered drinking 1oz, usually meaning he could drink it consistently at every feed for a few days, we would push him to drink a little bit more. We have gotten Little A to drink 5oz from the bottle a handful of times, but usually it’s over an hour. Currently, we are extremely happy with him always drinking 4oz in about 20/25 min while 2oz go through his tube (something his belly couldn’t always handle, but does now).  Since Little A is 8 months old we are working on eating solids. Once he eats more food, the 4oz bottle will be all he needs.  Like stated earlier, we aren’t doctors or specialists….we are just a mom and a grandma using our knowledge, experience and common sense. Just because it worked in our situation doesn’t guarantee it will work in yours.  At the very least it should give you hope and a starting point. Don’t be afraid to try!