I've heard people express strong opinions both ways, that nipple confusion is real, and that it is not.
What's been your experience?
I read about this a lot while I was pregnant because I was so adamant about making breastfeeding work.
My experience was that LO struggled more with the different flows between bottle and breast moreso than the different textures between breast nipples and a nipple on the bottle.
kiwi / 691 posts
I believe in flow preference, but not nipple confusion. My LO has shown preference for the bottle flow during growth spurts, but he definitely knows bottle vs breast vs pacifier.
pear / 1769 posts
LO had zero problems going between bottle, pacifier and breast and we offered her starting her first week.
pomegranate / 3452 posts
No I don't think it's as crazy bad as people may believe. I think it's just the case of different types of things in your mouth - normal to take a minute to get used to changes.
coconut / 8475 posts
Yes & no? Every time I've changed pacifiers or bottles or when I went back and forth between bFing and formula, he would take a day or 2 to get use to it.
But, after that initial transition, it was smooth sailin'!
We've gone through and tried like 5 different bottle brands? He liked them all. I just didn't like them for different reasons (some leaked, some had 100 parts to wash...)
pineapple / 12053 posts
r was EBF for the first 8 or so weeks because i didn't have a pump to express milk. i was also worried about nipple confusion so i didn't give her pacifiers, which she never figured out anyway! by the time we used the bottle, we had figured out our BFing relationship.
all that being said, i think @ninja: is correct because my friend's whose LOs had issues was more due to the flow (mom was overactive, bottle easier, etc)
papaya / 10473 posts
Yes i do. I'm currently struggling to wean my LO off the nipple shield and he won't nurse without it still. It's frustrating!
nectarine / 2458 posts
I believe in nipple preference, not confusion. Just like a kid might prefer a straw cup over a sippy cup, they might prefer a bottle over the breast.
pomegranate / 3388 posts
All I know is that I know many, many babies who have refused to take a bottle after being exclusively breastfed initially... but I've never heard of an actual real life baby who started preferring a bottle and flat out refusing to breastfeed.
My daughter started getting really cranky with breastfeeding around 3 months, but that was b/c she was getting most of her food from formula anyways at that point, and my supply was really almost nothing. The breastfeeding was like a tease to her... and she still didn't flat out refuse to do it, it's just that she would get annoyed. I've had so many friends struggle with babies who absolutely flat out refused bottles. In fact, I was one of those babies, and my mom could never leave the house without me for the full year that I was EBF.
pomegranate / 3872 posts
I don't know if it's the same, but LO prefers the breast to the bottle. I've tried to give her bottles and pacifiers but it's like she doesn't even know what to do with them. So maybe it's nipple confusion in the opposite direction because I waited too long to let her try a paci or bottle.
pomelo / 5093 posts
Nipple confusion is real, it's just that some babies don't have an issue with it. My daughter took a bottle easily, and when she got the hang of it, she breastfed easily. But I was never able to go back and forth. If I tried to bottle feed, she'd later have an awful time trying to latch on and nurse. It's a big problem for some children, but not for all. That certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
pomelo / 5093 posts
@skibobrown: I personally know several babies who refused to breastfeed after having to start on a bottle. It's a really sad situation for their mothers who had hoped to breastfeed.
nectarine / 2458 posts
Or in my case W wouldn't touch a dummy (bottle or pacifier) if I was within a 10 mile radius. He's a boob man through and through.
clementine / 994 posts
I, too, believe in nipper preference, not confusion.
DD is super special and wouldn't take ANY sort of bottle. She didn't mind being fed milk from a spoon, but if it had a nipple (and wasn't me :P) then no go. She'd drink water from a straw cup, but if I put milk in it, she'd hand it back to me (at 6 mo!). Finally, I tried hard spouted sippys, and she's perfectly content drinking milk out of that. Picky little weirdo. 
coconut / 8305 posts
I think there *can* be nipple confusion in the early days when a baby is still learning how to properly latch, but for the most part a baby can go from different style nipples (breast to the wide variety of binkies & bottles) just fine.
I see becoming lazy at the breast due to the ease of bottle feeding alot more often.
ETA: I know for us, P had alot of trouble going from breast to other nipples & back. She also had severe tongue tie though so her not having any distractions in learning proper latch was really vital. After that she couldn't have bottle b/c she quickly became lazy at the breast & it would take her days to get back to nursing happily.... Now, she won't take a bottle (which is fine since she drinks from the tap or a sippy anyways)
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
i think there is mostly problems with babies preferring breast than the other way around. olive went on several bottle strikes and eventually we had to quit bottles around 9 months.
coconut / 8472 posts
From my observation (but not experience) it seems more common to have issues if babies only bf for weeks/months and then aren't able to use bottles or interested in pacifiers. I plan to introduce a bottle after the first week, and keep using them 1x or 2x/ day because I'll need him to take a bottle for daycare by 3 months. So I guess we'll be our own nipple confusion experiment!
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
also olive had bottles from day one and mostly bottles the first two months of her life. but she still hated the bottle. once they get addicted to the boob, many babies hate the bottle!
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
I think it also depends on the amount of time a baby has a fake nipple. We introduced a bottle early on but it was just one a day and we had a good nursing relationship established when she started daycare at 12 weeks.
grapefruit / 4923 posts
luckily we did not experience nipple confusion--LO started bottles at 5 days old (in addition to nursing) because the pediatrician wanted him to gain weight. i am thankful that if nipple confusion does exist, that it didn't hamper our nursing relationship.
bananas / 9118 posts
I think it is preference, not confusion.
We had no issues switching between bottle and boob from day 2. I used a nipple shield for the first month, which helped a lot.
We kept up with reinforcing bottle feeding at least once a day and it was super easy for me to go back to work, feeding-wise. We had the occasional nursing or bottle strike during early teething, but that was it.
coconut / 8430 posts
I felt that my LO's latch was worse after taking a bottle because she didn't have to latch as deeply. I felt that I had to retrain her to latch correctly after the bottle. She was about 2.5 weeks when we started the bottle. Prior to that, she had been breastfed and finger fed.
cantaloupe / 6687 posts
My experience was very similar to @sunny. We had to supplement with formula and pumped breast milk for a few days to get LO back up to her birth weight and every time I gave her a bottle she would suck that milk down but at the next feeding she wouldn't know how to breastfeed and I would have to try multiple times to get her to latch and nurse. It was so frustrating so my pediatrician told us to syringe feed her which helped a lot. So I don't know if it was nipple confusion or that the bottle made her a lazy at breastfeeding...whatever it was it added to the stress of trying to get the hang of breastfeeding early on
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