Feeding your baby from a bottle may be your choice or necessity. In both cases, you need to know some basic points that ensure your baby’s healthy growth and normal development. Following are some of the things you should NOT do while bottle-feeding a child.

1. Diluting the formula without reading the instructions that come with it.
2. Giving cow-milk to the baby while he/she is younger than one year.
3. Replace one formula with another without consulting a pediatrician.
4. Giving the child a low-iron formula without the doctor’s recommendation.
5. Preparing a new dose of formula in the bottle without discarding any previously left milk in there.
6. Freezing formula for future use.
7. Prop up the bottle for the baby to drink from it.

It is always good to explain things a bit to parents in order to allow a better understanding of why they should not do something while bottle-feeding their baby. Given below are the reasons why you should not do the above listed points. The order of the reasons corresponds to the order of the above given not-to-do list.

1. You may prepare the formula incorrectly, depriving the kid of maximal benefit.
2. The baby’s digestive system finds it hard to digest cow-milk before he/she is at least a year old.
3. Some babies may be allergic to certain nutrients or components of the new formula.
4. Healthy development of the child needs adequate amount of iron.
5. Decomposition of the older formula by bacteria may pose risk of illness to the baby.
6. Freezing causes the ingredients of the formula to separate, degrading the quality of nutrition of the formula.
7. Propping up the bottle for the baby carries the risk of choking for the child and does not allow him/her to bond with the parent (cuddle the child instead while feeding him/her).