Alternative ways of breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is still prevailing way of feeding. It is supplemental feeding, when breastfeeding is not sufficient. The best is to use these methods until the time the baby is 6 month old or until it is the right time for first supplemental feeding using solid food. Good practise to breastfeed properly, the child should never be fed from the bottle. Sucking from the bottle and breast are different, the child learns to suck two different ways, which is confusing for them, and soon begins to prefer the bottle from which is easier to drink.

For premature infants the alternative ways of breastfeeding are particularly preferred, because it helps the fat metabolism in oral cavity. Another advantage of this is that it requires an active tongue movement, which is so important for successful breastfeeding.

Syringe

• More suitable for smaller amount of complementary foods (about 40 ml)
• Suitable for the child actively trying to suck and pull the plunger itself (otherwise the milk slowly spray, but never let the milk just slowly flow into the mouth)
• The child should have head higher than the body, also for better swallowing

Dropper, dispenser

• Suitable for small complementary foods (about 20, 30 ml)
• The child´s head is pressed gently down to his chin and his chest, afterwards the dropper is put into the child's mouth

Syringe using finger

• By inserting a clean finger into the child´s mouth and touching upper palate the sucking reflex will be provoked               
• Suitable for small and bigger complementary food (about 60 ml)
• Suitable for shorter period of time (week or two)
• Suitable for regular use (approximately three times a day)

Syringe with catheter

• The finger is put into the child mouth with the small tubule, which is laid on the top or besides the finger.
• It is ideal to use catheter for feeding newborns (you can find it in health accessory shops or in nurseries and hospitals. The price is about 0,5GBP per piece)
• Suitable for smaller and bigger complementary foods (about 80 ml)
• For regular use, several times a day, more than three weeks (if the situation even after this long time doesn´t change, it is necessary to look for some different alternative ways

Feeding beaker, mug

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• We touch the upper lip with tilted beaker. Reaction to this stimuli is the tongue protrusion and its twist to the shape of a cup which helps the child to reach the milk from the beaker
• This technique is very suitable for children from the age of 30 weeks of gestational age.
• Beaker feeding is very appropriate for children with split lip and palate, if breastfeeding is not possible.
• Feeding beaker is well received by children with impaired coordination of sucking and swallowing by supporting factors necessary for coordination of sucking and swallowing (movements of the tongue, lips, tone, speed muscle movements).
• Can be combined with a gastric tubule.

Feeding using suplementor

• Main advantage, the child still sucks from the breast using the catheter and thus stimulates the milk production.
• This is also very suitable procedure for extended use (with strict procedure, can achieve full lactation)

Suplementor

Suplementor is a tool designed for nursing mothers to alternatively feed complementary foods to the children using own breast milk from stored breast reserve.

This method provides an alternative complementary foods and the child receives milk from the bottle hanging on the neck of the mother while breastfeeding.

What suplementor consist of?

Suplementor consists of two bottles for supplementary food and two small tubes. Whole suplementor is sold and it´s use is easy.

Process:

Child will attach to the breast and to the catheter, which runs along mother’s breast and nipple. The better the baby attaches to both the easier the supplementor is used. The better attachment method you use the sooner child won´t need the supplementor feeding. That’s why the child attachment procedure is a key process in a supplementor feeding.

Catheter doesn´t necessarily needs to be placed to the end of the nipple but to make it work properly it is necessary for the catheter to come up to the child´s gums. It seems that this technique works better when you put the catheter to one of the edges of child´s mouth and comes up to the mouth right above the tongue in the direction of the child palate.  

Sometimes it helps when mother holds the catheter in one place using the index finger because some of the children tend to squeeze out the catheter with their tongue.

The bottle with the supplementary food should be higher than the child´s head. If the suppplementor works only when the bottle is held above the child´s head there is something wrong.

Supplementor should be used in every feeding during night or day.

It is possible to stick the catheters to the breast if the mother wishes to do so.

If everything is all right the baby drinks the necessary amount of mil from supplementor in 15-20 minutes or less.

Put the baby to the breast and watch out if it drinks effectively. Let him to be attached for as long as it want´s. Repeat the whole process on the second breast as well. Baby can be put to one breast and then the other.

Putting baby off the supplementor can take several weeks (2-8) or just a few days. Don’t lose the patience and don´t rush it.

First shoes

When does the child need his first shoes?

Even that markets are trying to persuade us with a big selection of lovely, colourful shoes for babies, it is absolutely not necessary for children up to the age of one year to have any shoes at all. Generally speaking: Until the baby is walking by itself and running outside, it doesn´t need to have shoes.  If we make such a mistake and put on shoes at the time the baby is not ready for it, we can cause a lot of problems in their future – first of all, ill shaped feet,  flat – feet, problems with knees and hip joints, abnormal finger position or buckling in, on the top of these issues also back related issues.

The best way is to let the child walk  without any shoes. Such natural walking, strengthen bones and exercise feet muscles, maintain strong and flexible tendons and ligaments and also works as prevention against flat feet. 

In this stage, shoes, preferably slippers have just a protective function.  The shoes protects the child against the cold, dampness and injury.  When you find shoes which matches your requirements and fit the child´s feet, you should buy two of them, because child´s feet gets sweaty very easily and which makes great opportunity for bacteria and mould to grow inside the shoe.

If you have a cold ground or just want the baby to use the slippers for walking at home, think about slip sole, comfort, space, but not much, it should just fit the child´s feet and especially don´t forget to alternate it with slip sole socks. Slippers which are just the best as a first shoes are for example these:

When buing shoes for proper walking, there are few things you should keep in mind:

• Toe shoe should be round (as the child´s foot needs space to spread the fingers enough)

• Ideal size of the shoe is 1 to 1,5cm bigger that the child´s feet in width and length

• Big mistake is to buy one size bigger shoe, because the size is increased both in width and height

• You should check the child´s shoes every month, because their feet grow very quickly and they can be too small for them, before you even know it, which can cause a lot of deformations as mentioned before.

• Shoes should have a little heel on it's whole bottom side because child´s feet are very sensible, way more than our own feet. Thus they can feel every stone they step on so they need bigger feet protection.

• Never buy shoes on the internet, metrics of every shop and manufacturer are different and every child has an individual feet shape, so you definitely need to try it on first if it fits properly.

• Another very important point is the feet hygiene – cutting the nails, wearing cotton socks, etc.

• Always measure size of the feet when the child is standing. These days quite modern technology of 3D scanners can be used to measure the feet size with a very high precision   followed by the advice you can see on the device screen which size to buy.

• We shouldn´t forget to measure sizes of instep and feet itself as they can cause the feet deformations.

• Good and quality child shoes also have following properties:

    ◦ Softness

    ◦ Very light

    ◦ Material, which is able to absorb the dampnes well

    ◦ Leather

    ◦ Airy

    ◦ Good bending properties

    ◦ Special isolation material to soften feet impact on the ground

Games, for feet arch support exercise

It is very helpful to play special games with the children that are intended to support it's feet arch structure.

• Picking up stone or some other object: the child is suppose to pick up the little stone by his foot and walk around the room. If it is successful the stone can be passed from one foot to the other.

• Drawing with the feet: we can use crayons and let the child colour with it or just create usual footprints.

• Walking on tiptoe

• Swinging from tip to heel

Questions  

Do you know why infant have a flat feet?

Because the inner part of the foot sole is filled with fat pad that disappears after the second year of life. 

Did you notice that even when the child is outside during winter wearing quality shoes and warm socks on drawers it still has a cold feet? Why? Do you know the answer to that?

• The answer is that child doesn't need thick and warm sock into it's shoe, because that only takes the heat from the feet and it prevents the blood from flowing and heating the feet.

???

How much sodium is a healthy amount for a young baby?

Did you even know that you should be watching the amount of sodium your baby takes each day? It is very important, so important that if you cross a healthy limit for the day you can put the child in a life threatening situation.

Why is it so important to watch it for our babies…simply put, because their kidneys are not like ours and they are not able to regulate the amount of sodium inside of the body. That´s why using bigger amount of sodium can damage their kidneys. Even 1g of salt on 1kg of baby weight can be life threatening for the newborn.

Cooked solid food shouldn’t contain any salt at all. Older babies can get some food, which contain a little salt (rolls, cheese), but they shouldn´t eat salty rolls, salt cheese, smoked meat or pickles, all the products mentioned above contains a lot of salt. (In fact even when the babies are breastfed, mother´s milk contains some amount of sodium as well. That is fine as it is just a healthy amount for the baby, but we should keep it on mind and count with it)

Also don´t forget when your baby is taking some food supplement, you should add it to the daily amount of allowed sodium. Lot of babies take Nutrition product (because of the reflux problems) and it is very important to know that this product contain some sodium as well. It is advisable to verify the baby water you can buy at shop for sodium amount as well, this shouldn´t exceed the limit of 20mg per 1 litre.

Recommended daily amount of sodium

Age                                             Recommended daily amount

0 – 6 month                                 120 to 242mg

7 – 12 month                               334mg

1 – 3 years                                  500mg

4 – 6 years                                  700mg

7 – 10 years                                1200mg

11- 14 years                               1600mg

Mineral water which contains 200mg of sodium per 1 litre are not appropriate. Pregnant and feeding women should look out for these limits. This limit will help to prevent from swelling and high pressure.

Sodium intake in England is 2 - 3 times higher than our organism needs and can use.

About me

As the most important start I find to explain why I started to write my own blog. The answer is very simple – I want to give my whole life to children. With children I work intensively for over 7 years. I had the opportunity to realize that looking after children is not that easy as it could look…definitely not in the case you want to do your job responsibly and with all the following consequences. That was maybe the fact which motivates me the most on this journey and helped me to decide about my mission. I love the fact that every child is so original and amazing by itself, covered into the secret shell with their pure innocence - childhood.

Flynn

For this story I will go back to Ireland. I looked after three boys there. The youngest one was just two and half year old. And this young boy gave me many reasons to think…

One day we played with Flynn as usually. Flynn was very calm and curious boy. We discovered everything we possibly could about his lovely toys. Then I would usually sit and watch Flynn how he plays by himself. (I think that it is very important when the child is able to play on his own as well. Child fantasy is amazing and it is a shame to compartmentalize it from our adult´s world – the child itself can play differently, significantly more fully than we can offer them, we should be more in position of stimulating them when needed and lead them as best we can to keep them in their world for as long as we are able to. And so I adored Flynn for playing so nicely with his trains.

When He looked up to me, I told him: „Flynn you are such a good boy, playing so nicely with your toys“. He smiled and answered: „I also know, how to watch TV nicely.“

At that moment I realized that our children will be that happy as we let them to be. In following days I observed the family routine to see where was that sacred sentence coming from and it didn´t take long to find it out.

Flynn´s mum was a perfectionist, so most of the days she was trying to get rid of some dirt on her fridge, dishwasher, ground, etc. But this dirt weren´t even here, she was just hallucinating, but the dirt which were starting to show up was the one on Flynn´s heart, but she didn´t notice them. Very simply put, at the time mum was cleaning (it was for most of the day), Flynn was left to be occupied with his TV, because that way mum was sure she gets enough of a space to do her business.

And my question is: „Was that child happy?“ Only because his mum felt more responsible for sparkling ground then the quality time for her own child, he was left with this media box. As a consequences of that were two things – after few weeks Flynn didn´t know how to play anymore (so he lost something what belongs to the level of his development and stage of his life and what is so special just for this age) and began to be very restless and was calling for his only fun – television more often.

Even when brothers came home from school, he was still more often calling for his best friend – television. And what is the result of it – you judge yourself.