My friend teaches me to prop my baby’s bottle so that I can still feed him without holding on to the bottle. That way, I can do some of the house chores while he is feeding. I am not sure if I should be propping up his bottle? Chelsea, 20; Clement, 2 months
Dr. Stork says: The answer is a big NO. Always hold your baby when you give him a bottle. Laying him down and propping his bottle in his mouth is never a good thing to do. A propped bottle gives him no love or emotional support. He needs that from you. He needs eye contact while he’s eating. In addition to the loving he gets from being held while he eats, he’s also less likely to have an ear infection if you don’t ever prop his bottle. Many ear infections are caused by baby drinking from a propped bottle. The passageway from the ear to the throat doesn’t drain well in infancy and the milk if not ‘served’ properly, can go back to his ears and cause an infection. Drinking from a propped bottle is dangerous in another way. If the baby spits up, he could choke on the milk curd because he’d be unable to spit it out with a bottle propped in his mouth.
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Tags: Breastfeeding, feeding, propping bottle