Oatmeal not going through bottles

My girls have awful reflux they are 3 months old and have been on medicine since they were 2 months. Since they are still spitting up like crazy my doctor suggested oatmeal in a bottle. Siad to start with a table spoon and see how they do with that. THey are eating 50z. Tonight I tried to put it in their bottle but I only put a teaspoon just to try it for the first time. I use the avent bottles adn we were using the #2 nipples. I put it in my BM and heated the bottle and gave it to them, well it would notcome out at all!! So I switched to the #3 nipple and it would come out a little bit but the oatmeal seemed to work its way to the top of the nipple, so I then poked a hole in the nipple and it came out a little more but not that much after one hour and 45 mins of trying to get it to come out and give them their bottle they (ithink got tired of sucking and went to sleep) it was thier bottle b4 bed!

Anyone know waht im doing wrong??!? any bottles or nipples work better?!? any advicewould be graet it was very fustrating! AFter the one horu and 45 mins we only got both girls to drink 3 oz so im sure they are going to be up tonight too !! ehhh!!!
TIA!

 

My twins spit up A LOT and the pedi told me I could add cereal to their bottle if I wanted to. It was more of a nuisance to me than to them. I just couldn't be bothered with something else to remember to do... :laughing: But when he did tell me I could add the cereal to help-he said to make sure I used the "y" nipples. They are cut a bit bigger than the regular nipples. Or you could attempt to do it yourself. I hope that helps! And I hope the cereal helps with the reflux!

 

We had the same exact problem! What I discovered is that Avent #2 nipples have 2 small holes. Avent #3 nipples have 3 small holes. So the cereal will never get through them. You can buy special Avent nipples made for cereal (they have them at Amazon.com). What I did though was just bought cheap Gerber bottles and Gerber crosscut nipples (hole is shaped like an X) and used those for when we fed rice cereal. This worked great and was not an expensive solution.

 

thank you i will try and get new nipples

 

We did the avent ones for a while with one daughter and tried the nips for cereal and it just won't come through. She didn't really like it anyway, we tried a different bottle. Our other daughter got doc orders to do it because of reflux also and by the advice of a friend (who just did it) we switched to the Dr. Brown bottles and went with a #3 nip,. They worked great. Maybe it's worth trying to switch bottles?? Good luck.

 

My pedi had us put our LO's on cereal about 2 weeks ago and I had the same problem. I went through several different bottles and found that I like the playtex ventaire the best. The 8oz bottles came with a fast flow nipple that work great with the cereal and the bottle itself seems to help with the reflux, better than the dr. browns even. I only put 2 tsp. of rice cereal in the bottles though.

 

My kiddos have all had problems with spitting up a ton after feeding, so I've had to add cereal to my kids formula starting way back when DD18 was a baby! I always cut the nipple into an x shape. It can be hard to get it just right, sometimes I cut too much and ruin the nipple (but we use the cheapies so they are easy to replace) If your using just a tiny bit of cereal, you could try heating a needle and making the hole bigger with the hot needle.

 

One of my boys had reflux and was on zantac and then we switched to previcid. We also were told to put rice cereal in the bottles but he never really liked it. My other son who had bottle feeding problems was put on the Enfamil AR which is thickened with rice starch. We switched them both to this formula and it helped them both so much.

There is a Target brand of it which is a bit cheaper, however, it is thinner for some reason than the regular. I don't know if it would help but I didn't have to fight with different bottles and nipples.

Good luck!

 

I wouldn't buy new nipples, we had Avent and took an exacto knife to the nipples that we had. Made a small slit, up to 1/2 cm in each one. Worked like a charm and didn't have to shell out $$ for new bottles or those extremely expensive nipples. And you don't outgrow them either!!

 

I am going to paste in something I wrote in a thread a while back about nipples for use with rice or oatmeal cereal. You need specific nipples for Avent bottles. The Level 2 & 3 nipples are not intended for thick liquids.


"... You can put the rice cereal directly into the bottles and swish them around a bit. Importantly, you need the Level Y nipples for the Dr. Brown bottles. They're specifically for thicker liquids. The Level 2's are not designed for thick liquids ..."

"... Just like with the Dr. Brown bottles (Level Y), the Avent nipple packages (Airflex) will tell you that the nipple is designed for thicker liquids. The Avent nipples designed for thicker liquids don't have a number on them, they have lines and as you turn the nipple, the flow of the liquid changes. I don't know if this makes any sense, but at the store, just look for the Avent nipples that say they're designed for thicker liquids (it says so right on the top of the package). Using the regular 1-2-3-etc. nipples (Dr. Brown or Avent) will probably get the LOs frustrated that they can't get the liquid out if it's too thick..."