Rowena's Online Bottle-Feeding Aversion Program

From our healthcare providers: "Push your baby to drink more. " "Feed your baby every 2 hours because your baby is on the smaller side." Around 7 - 8 weeks of age, our baby started to get extremely fussy during feeding time. Despite what we thought were "hunger cues" at the time, he would cry as soon as soon as he was put into the feeding position, or when the bottle nipple was stroked against his lips. Then he would drink a little bit of milk, then cry, then drink a little bit, then cry. He would also arch his back in the middle of feeds. We thought we were waiting too long to feed him, so we tried calming him down before offering more. Then he would continue to cry. The cycle repeated itself over and over, day in and day out. We felt that our feeds had become exhausting and unsustainable. Interestingly, he would feed well without any fuss during his middle of the night feeds, so we almost resorted to feeding him 100% in his sleep or finding some weird distracting position to feed (yoga ball bouncing or baby carrier). We went to our healthcare provider. After describing baby's symptoms over a phone call, they diagnosed him with reflux and milk protein allergy. We were told to switch to a hypoallergenic formula. After 3 days on the expensive smelly hypoallergic formula, our baby's symptoms got worse. He would drink even LESS than he did before on the conventional formula! After researching, we came across Rowena's website, and everything just clicked. We went back to the cheaper conventional formula and started implementing the program and feeding rules as soon as possible. Now feeding times are much more enjoyable. We are still learning his hunger and satiety cues as he is growing and developing, but we have learned to trust our baby to decide when and how much he wants to eat!

I honestly cannot recommend this program enough! I suspect my daughter has had a bottle aversion so roughly 2.5-3 months, she is now 6.5 months, and it got to the point where she would cry as soon as I put her in a feeding position or if she saw the bottle. Once starting this program I saw improvements within 3 days, although I should point out that the first 2 days were really hard! Fast forward 6 weeks and my daughter is a different baby, she absolutely loves her feeds now and takes great volumes, she's also being weaning onto solids and is enjoying that too... I'm one very happy mama! Also, check out the facebook page for support :)

Excellent program. I wish there was more education for doctors and speech pathologists about this area. Our paediatricians, neonatologist and speech pathologist had never heard of your aversion theory and the steps to overcome it. There will continue to be misdiagnoses when this behavioural problem continues being misdiagnosed as medical in origin. I certainly won't make the misdiagnosis in the future for my patients and I'm thankful that this experience has taught me about this aversion theory. I'm not a big Facebook person but I've honestly found the FB support group helpful. Thank you so much for your exemplary program.

One of my identical twin boys started fussing a lot during feedings and through my digging I found Rowena’s program and used her advice to remove stressors from his feedings and now he fusses only if I accidentally do something that he perceives as feeding pressure and I immediately stop! His aversion was mild compared to many of the stories on the program. The program corrected a lot of our bad habits and made our feedings much more pleasant. We also found that both boys like to be fed more on their sides; we never would have thought position mattered so much. Highly recommend!