No Need to Pace Feed!

By: Heather Keniston

Overfeeding does not happen often when breastfeeding, but can happen when giving your baby a bottle. When a baby is overfed, they cannot properly digest their formula or breastmilk and it can cause them pain in their stomachs and gas. This is where paced feeding comes to the rescue. It’s useful for babies to be able to control how much milk they get. 

“Do you need to pace feed with mimijumi?” 

We get this question a lot from our mimijumi moms or moms interested in trying mimijumi.

The answer is no! We will explain this benefit a little later in more detail, but for now, let’s understand the ins and outs of pace feeding. 

What is pace feeding? 

The goal of pace feeding is to ultimately give the baby control, the same way they would when breastfeeding. This makes your baby work harder for the food and prevents overfeeding. Paced feeding requires correct holding of the baby, feeding cues, and bottle positioning.

There are several important steps required for paced feeding according to Mama Natural: 

1. The baby must be sitting more upright instead of laying horizontally like they would during breastfeeding.
2. The bottle should tickle the baby’s lips and almost trace their lips to invite them to open their mouth. Once their mouth is open, the bottle nipple should be inserted into their mouth.
3. Natural instinct is to hold the bottle upright, letting the baby drink the milk. With paced feeding, the bottle should be held more horizontal so not a lot of milk will be available to the baby.
4. Feedings occur in cycles of between 20 and 30 seconds and at that point, the bottle should be tilted down or even removed. The idea is to stop the milk from being available to the baby so they eat slower.

Since breastfeeding is a natural process that babies would go through, introducing paced feeding should mimic the way breastfeeding happens, specifically the speed of eating. As adults, we’re all in charge of how much we eat, so why shouldn’t baby be in charge of how much they eat? With paced feeding, baby is able to determine when they’re satisfied. 

But, with paced feeding, baby is not in control of the flow, but more in control of when they’re “full.” The caregiver controls the flow of the milk by letting up every 20-30 seconds. 

What if your little one could not only control how much they eat, but also could control the flow? 

Putting more power into the hands of your baby is an exciting way to feed. Not only are they controlling their feeding process, but they are strengthening and developing their muscles. 

Sure, breastmilk has a lot of benefits for your baby, but the actual physical interaction of baby at the breast has benefits as well. The baby’s jaw, facial muscles, and tongue are all affected when breastfeeding and this is a phenomenon that does not occur to the same extent as when baby drinks from a bottle. 

Until mimijumi, that is. This bottle enables moms to easily go between the breast and bottle with no bottle rejection or nipple confusion. This happens because the nipple of a mimijumi bottle mimics the breast. 

With mimijumi, your baby is able to actively suckle and control the flow of the milk. As a mom, this is great because you never have to worry about exactly matching the flow rate of your natural breastfeeding flow like you would if you were pace feeding. 

Still not convinced? 

Order a mimijumi bottle and try it for yourself. If it doesn’t work, you can send it back for a full refund. The used bottle is then donated by the mimijumi team to our charity partner, Baby2Baby. 

When looking for ways to feed your baby, all that matters at the end of the day is that your baby is happy and healthy. If you believe paced feeding is better or baby controlling the flow is better, you decide and enjoy those small moments when your baby looks up at you from their feeding and smiles. They’re only this young for a little while :)