baby bottle question

Make-it-3

Hi SpaghettiMonster, how are you? Certainly in the UK we are told never to add anything to baby's bottles as its a specific choking risk. I think it was something that was done many, many years ago.

I really don't see why the practice would have started, after all as an adult we would be probably be a bit taken aback by suddenly having to deal with lumps in something we were sucking. Strange that it is considered the norm in Holland.

onlyroz

My own instinct (regardless of the current advice) would be to separate "drinking" from "eating" - and so juice/milk/water should be in a cup/bottle/breast and food should be in a spoon/bowl/plate/smeared on the walls and in baby's hair. In any case, I never really saw the point in baby rice. I stuck with banana, porridge, carrots etc, gradually increasing the texture.

spaghetti_monster

Hi all and thanks for the replies!
I was replying yesterday, but then lost some of it......

Hi Make-it-3! Hope all well with you too.

And thanks for the tip durham girl - the teat of the new bottle does look a bit longer.

onlyroz - I don't know about the eating/drinking thing. I myself like a nice fruit smoothie, which ends up pretty thick (don't some people put porridge oats in? I've drunk something in South America with little fruit pieces and corn in) Also thick soups drunk from a cup, or drinking yoghurt. Or thin soups with bits in, breakfast cereal in milk - I guess that we end up drinking and eating things with a large range of textures.

I was googling around and didn't find it sooo easy to see - maybe because it's such a given in the UK? Sometimes it says it's a choking hazard, but the main focus of the information seems to be on younger babies (mine is 6.5 months) and that they should just get milk before 6 months.
Anyway, I read things in both Dutch and English - so I must have just read positive things about adding to bottles in Dutch and not read much further.

When looking on Dutch websites/forums I found absolutely nothing about it being a dangerous choking hazard. They do say the same thing about no solids until 6 months.
Here is a copy of typical things suggested by the consultatie bureau (health visitor equivalent - we go to the bureau at regular intervals for weight/length/growth/development checks, vaccinations and either see a nurse or pediatrician):
http://www.kindjeopkomst.nl/html/baby/vastevoeding_002.htm

You may not trust my powers of google, but believe me I'm better than google translate:

09.00 uur 200cc melk met 4 schepjes rijstenbloem

means:

9am 200cc milk with 4 spoons of rice flour.

My (paper) copy I have here from the bureau says that from 5 months you can (if you think necessary) add 1-4 tablespoons of rice flour to one feed. And between 6-7 months change the balance of this feed to a more solid porridge.

But ANYWAY...
I'm not sure that it's making any difference to LO's sleeping habits. The first evening I gave it to him, he hardly drank any. OH said he'd also had hardly any of his bottle at 8pm (I was at work) - but he then slept 12-6am. Last night was more typical - gave him the added-to bottle at 8pm, breastfed when he woke at 12, he was wide awake and chatting 3.45-4.30, awake at 6.
Also breastfeeding is going very well, very quick and easy and I'd rather not have to express, so all in all, considering new-found choking danger, and also that LO is quite happy to eat the cereal in porridge texture from a spoon, I will have a serious think about it.

BTW
I joined the site a few years ago whilst still living in the UK (where I'm from) and it really helped me get debt free. Now I'm in the Netherlands, I still find the site and forum very helpful indeed and have been on this forum more since starting a family.
Most of the issues/procedures/advice about pregnancy/birth/babies is very similar if not identical, which is why I find it so surprising about this bottle thing.
One thing they do here - they want you to have a couple of aluminium hot water bottles with covers and use these when putting newborns to bed for the first month or 2. I'd never heard of this (neither had any British family or friends). I got some comments here from Dutch people about those poor cold English babies...but I never heard anything about freezing babies in the UK, or choking babies over here...

delain

On the subject of cold babies Spaghetti Monster, my ex MIL is German born in spite of having lived here now for about 50 years, and thinks you need to dress babies by the calendar in winter (ie if it's november baby must wear a vest, sleepsuit, cardigan and snowsuit, even if it's 14 degrees outside and baby is sweating their head off!) and generally wrapped up in far too many clothes ALL the time :eek:

She seemed to think me dressing DD1 in a snowsuits with just a vest underneath (even though she was sweating when we got home) was tantamount to child abuse and didn't I know that poor baby was going to freeze :rotfl:

Just goes to show how much variation there is between here and europe generally.

ETA I should say she's not some sort of monster... she does love the children very much, in spite of her strange ideas about cold weather gear

Nicki

Its really unusual for newborn babies to sweat apparently! My DS was very poorly as a baby and needed the sweat test for cystic fibrosis. They warned me at the time that they would probably not be able to carry it out properly as babies that age very rarely sweat. He was dressed in vest, sleepsuit, cardigan, hat, outdoor snowsuit and wrapped in two blankets on a hot hospital ward (and the probe they use to collect the sweat was under all that lot and also wrapped in several bandages) and they only just got enough to do the test, and I couldnt have told by looking at him that he was sweating.

I've always used the touch their chest tip to see if they are warm enough, and it drives me absolutely bonkers when people stop me in the street and tell me my babies aren't warmly enough dressed by touching their hands or cheeks. The real obsession is hats on newborns. I had my last baby on a very warm September, and was told off by a first time mum when leaving the health centre because he wasn't wearing a hat. He did have a sleepsuit and jacket with hood (which was up) on, and I was wearing a t shirt and jeans only and wasn't in the least cold. I am afraid she got hormone induced short shrift on the basis I'd already successfully raised two older ones without causing them any health problems, so was fairly confident I wasn't doing anything which would cause that one any harm either.

spaghetti_monster

This is top of the "what to get for your baby" list
http://www.tangara.nl/ShopDetail.asp?ID=916

You have to get 2. They tell you to warm the spot in the crib when the baby's not in it, to warm clothes on it before you put them on the baby and to put one next to the baby in the crib/cot, but wrapped in a blanket in such a way there's no danger or direct contact.
Mum and Gran were totally bemused having brought up several babies in houses with no central heating.
I was also told to check in the crease of the neck for warmth - which was often nice and warm when cheeks and hands were cool.
We were also told take his temperature a couple of times a day. If the baby's below a certain temperature you have to put a hat on.
We stopped with the temperature-taking after a few weeks (maybe feeling more confident) and then with the bottles (which also didn't seem to me to be entirely necessary......)

That's another reason the bottle thing surprises me - the Dutch are quite prescriptive, doing things by the book. The consultatie bureau is country-wide and has definite policies and advice.

DizzyDizzy

delain wrote: »

On the subject of cold babies Spaghetti Monster, my ex MIL is German born in spite of having lived here now for about 50 years, and thinks you need to dress babies by the calendar in winter (ie if it's november baby must wear a vest, sleepsuit, cardigan and snowsuit, even if it's 14 degrees outside and baby is sweating their head off!) and generally wrapped up in far too many clothes ALL the time :eek:

She seemed to think me dressing DD1 in a snowsuits with just a vest underneath (even though she was sweating when we got home) was tantamount to child abuse and didn't I know that poor baby was going to freeze :rotfl:

Just goes to show how much variation there is between here and europe generally.

ETA I should say she's not some sort of monster... she does love the children very much, in spite of her strange ideas about cold weather gear

My Gran was German, and I remember her telling us about the bitter German winters, where everything was covered in snow for months at a time, and all the water froze etc etc. Sometimes they weren't allowed out because it was just too cold to venture out! I think sometimes we forget in this country that we actually have a fairly mild climate, and it only really gets cold for a few weeks!

I was told the rule by a midwife to dress baby in one more layer then yourself, so if you had a t shirt & coat on, then baby should be in a vest, t shirt and coat, or something similair. I still with that with the kids, although as they are running round now they tend to get v hot!