Babies love to suck on things…fingers, thumbs, breast, and bottle. There are specific challenges when it comes to a child with dwarfism, and feeding and self soothing.
If you’re having breast-feeding issues, please see a specialty nurse or doctor immediately. Your baby may require a prosthesis to help, sometimes there’s a learning curve for baby and/or mama, or it could be that mama may be having trouble producing enough milk. Many infants require feeding tubes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have breast milk, you may have to pump. In addition, certain moms cannot produce milk, (or perhaps your a dad), but that doesn’t mean baby has to go without, La Leche League offers feeding help and donated breast milk. According to LLLI, “Milk banks use Holder pasteurization to eliminate or deactivate unwanted or dangerous (pathogenic) bacteria and viruses that may be present in donor milk. After pasteurization, milk banks screen all batches before distribution and will discard milk still containing bacteria.”
What to do when your little baby won’t take to a bottle after proper weaning? First, if the bottle is the only source of nutrition then see above. Sometimes a different nipple is needed. Your baby may have poor muscle tone and need a different “flow” nipple on the bottle, (they have preemie, slow, medium, and fast). Talk to your doctor or nurse right away.
Switching to a sippy cup too early could result in an oral fixation such as biting nails, over eating, etc., later on. If your child is already past this stage and you’re thinking, “Oh no, now he chews on his blankie!”, don’t worry—you can still talk to a specialty nurse or a child psychologist. They will most likely tell you not to worry. Still, in the future you may want to be on the look out for other oral fixation behaviors— there are remedies.
Remember, learning to self sooth early is important, and there are proven methods to help. By about 6 months, children learn to do this, and they will continue to learn throughout childhood. Ways to help them include things like music, quiet playtime, stuffed animals, and keeping a routine before bed and even throughout the day. Later, time spent playing alone will become crucial to proper development. But even babies should have playtime without interference… just time to enjoy being with themselves.
Each child will be ready to give up the bottle, the sippy, and the thumb or pacifier at their own pace. If your child is at the obvious age beyond giving these things up, maybe it’s time to look for other ways they can self sooth, think about stressors in their environment, and talk with a professional. Letting a child continue with a bottle, sippy cup, thumb sucking, or pacifier into later ages can cause issues with dealing with stress later on, (not to mention issues like dental problems).
One note, many babies with dwarfism will need to be on a CPAP machine. This will mean swaddling them so that they stay put at night. This can interfere with the whole self soothing process as they can’t have a pacifier, or even their thumb, if they have a CPAP. So, you may be in store for some unwanted behaviors later down the line. Don’t worry, use common sense and speak to a professional about it.
If you and your little sucker are having issues, I wish you the best of luck… no one said this would be easy.
The Great Little 