Rowena Bennett's Bottle-feeding Aversion Program

An aversion is the avoidance of an object or situation because it is psychologically linked with an unpleasant, stressful, frightening, or painful experience. It is the demonstration of avoidant behaviour in anticipation of something negative occurring.

A feeding aversion refers to a situation where a physically well baby repeatedly exhibits partial or full feeding refusal despite obvious hunger. A feeding-averse baby has a history that demonstrates he’s capable of feeding but for reasons yet to be identified and corrected, he refuses to feed or eats very little. A ‘feeding phobia’ and ‘feeding strike’ are other terms that may be used to describe a feeding aversion.

Babies as young as 7 weeks of age can develop an aversion to breastfeeding or bottle-feeding. Older babies can become averse to eating solids; they do not simply display fussy eating habits, but are resistant to eating overall.  A baby could become averse to one, two, or all three feeding methods.

The following page discusses feeding aversion in further detail, including typical signs / behaviours that infants might display when feeding averse:

See my article here.

Very! But only if all other causes of feeding refusal and fussy feeding behavior have been either ruled out or remedied before starting the program. And only if the parent strictly follows my feeding rules and recommendations, which took me over 10 years to refine. 

Based on over 3000 cases where I provided bottle-feeding aversion consultations—which helped the parents to rule out other potential causes, described in Module 3, and clarify their understanding of the feeding rules, my success rate was around 95 percent. Of those who did not succeed, most admitted that high anxiety levels prevented them from following my feeding rules and recommendations. Module 5 describes the most common reasons for parents to not witness signs of improvement in their baby's feeding behavior.

ery! But only if all other causes of feeding refusal and fussy feeding behavior have been either ruled out or remedied before starting the program. And only if the parent strictly follows my feeding rules and recommendations, which took me over 10 years to refine. 

Based on over 3000 cases where I provided bottle-feeding aversion consultations—which helped the parents to rule out other potential causes, described in Module 3, and clarify their understanding of the feeding rules, my success rate was around 95 percent. Of those who did not succeed, most admitted that high anxiety levels prevented them from following my feeding rules and recommendations. Module 5 describes the most common reasons for parents to not witness signs of improvement in their baby's feeding behavior.

Typically, a baby begins to display aversion behaviours towards feeding from as early as 6-8 week of age as baby's natural sucking reflex begins to fade. While babies can have feeding issues from birth, it is unlikely that baby will display true aversion behaviours earlier than this age. If an aversion is confirmed, then this program is for you!

If you have a baby who is under 6 weeks of age whom you believe is displaying aversion behaviour, we encourage you to connect with a Baby Care Advice consultant for an assessment and age specific advice and support. 

At Baby Care Advice, we do not provide medical advice. If you believe your baby’s troubled behaviour is due to a medical condition, we recommended that you discuss this with your baby’s doctor.

It is important to understand that diagnosed medical conditions and medications will not spare your baby from experiencing one, or many, of the developmental and behavioural problems which are often the cause of a distressed infant. This includes both feeding and sleeping concerns.

So, if medical professionals have been unable to provide solutions to your baby care concerns, it may be that the cause is developmental or behavioural instead – we invite you to connect with our team, who are experts in these fields!

Access to the Online Feeding Aversion Program is for a six month duration, and is limited to two devices only.

TThe Bottle-Feeding Aversion Program is designed with stressed and busy parents in mind, and does contain lots of pertinent information to help you understand your baby’s feeding aversion and the solutions to resolving this. Although the videos are approximately a few minutes each, how quickly it takes to progress through the modules is user specific; while some are happy to approach the modules fast paced, others may choose to spend additional time re-visiting content.

The Online Feeding Aversion Course is broken down into six main modules. Each module focuses on a specific aspect of behavioural feeding aversions and is primarily presented in video format. We aim to keep each video short and sweet, whist still providing all of the important specifics. There are also downloadable resources, such as PDFs which you can keep long term and reference when needed.

While there is no written content within the modules there are several downloadable resources which are in PDF format for you to reference as needed. The course is designed to be a fast-tracked, visually presented suite of information which will guide you through resolving your baby’s bottle-feeding aversion. However, it is recommended you read ‘Your Baby’s Bottle Feeding Aversion: Reasons and Solutions’ by Rowena Bennett for a full overview of the program, whilst completing the online modules. Rowena’s book also contains extra information which you may find helpful along the way. There are also additional resources available on the Baby Care Advice website which may help you during this journey:

https://www.babycareadvice.com/blogs/bottle-feeding

In theory, I would say all normal healthy babies can enjoy feeding and eating. However, the source of the baby's fear needs to be identified and removed. Plus, the parents need to take the lead to make the experience of feeding and eating pleasurable for their baby. 

It’s not the baby who is incapable of getting over his fear of bottle-feeding, rather it’s the parents who find they are either unable to change their mindset that they are responsible for controlling how much their baby eats, or who are prevented from making the necessary changes to their infant feeding practices because of high anxiety levels triggered by the expected initial drop in their baby’s milk intake.

At this time, the Bottle-Feeding Aversion Course addresses bottle-feeding aversion only. However, we know that other baby care concerns exist – programs covering breastfeeding aversion, solids aversion and sleep challenges will follow. Watch this space!

If you require support to overcome a breast or solids aversion, or would like to get support with baby’s sleep, please visit our Consultations page where you can connect with a consultant and discuss your unique situation:

Click here.

My feeding aversion program promotes baby-led feeding practices. Baby-led feeding practices are suitable for all healthy babies who are achieving all milestones expected for their stage of development, and who have the physical ability to safely feed from a bottle, regardless of whether they are averse to feeding or not.

The recommended infant feeding practices will not only fix a feeding aversion that has been caused or reinforced by being pressured to feed, but they will also prevent a healthy baby from developing an aversion for this reason because all pressure is removed.

Due to the nature of our course, there is no money back guarantee attached to our Bottle-Feeding Aversion Program. Rowena's program boasts a modest 95% success rate at overcoming behavioural feeding aversion in physically well babies. We understand that there are circumstances where the methods outlined in our Online Feeding Aversion Course are unsuccessful, although this represents the absolute minority of cases and is generally caused by a failure to follow the recommendations as a whole.

It can, provided all caregivers strictly follow the feeding rules, described in Module 4. I have seen some feeding-averse babies get over their aversion while being fed by four different people during the program.

However, be aware that the more people there are feeding your baby during the program, the longer it can take. Your baby will need to learn to trust that all caregivers will respond appropriately to his signs of rejection by removing the bottle and taking him out of a feeding position.

If multiple caregivers are unavoidable, don’t let that prevent you from solving your baby’s feeding aversion. But try to have just one person providing all feeds for the first three days, which is the time you are watching for signs of improvement to decide if the program is working. The delay in progress that occurs as a result of having multiple caregivers feeding your baby during the first few days could cause you to have doubts about the program working, and you might give up without giving your baby the chance to get over his feeding aversion. You may not see the expected signs of improvement by the end of Day 3 (described in Module 5) until around Day 5.

Yes! The strategies outlined in Rowena Bennett' book 'Your Baby's Bottle Feeding Aversion: Reasons and Solutions', and presented in the Bottle-Feeding Aversion Program, can be applied to all healthy babies, or babies whose medical conditions are stable. This includes babies who have diagnosed reflux, where their condition is controlled with medication.

The Bottle-Feeding Aversion Program is not suitable, in isolation, for babies who are tube fed. For this reason, we recommend a tube weaning consultation with one of our consultants.

We can provide guidance via our consultations if the reason your baby is tube-fed and whether he is physically capable of safely feeding from a bottle.

If your baby is not physically capable of safely and effectively feeding from a bottle, our tube weaning services will not be suitable.

If your baby has a history that demonstrated he is capable of feeding from a bottle, but he was originally tube-fed because of an undiagnosed feeding aversion deteriorating to the point where his health or growth had become compromised, then removing all pressure and responding appropriately to his feeding cues of acceptance and rejection could help to reduce his anxiety when offered the bottle. However, this may not be enough to get him back to the point of fully feeding orally.

If your baby doesn’t know how to feed from a bottle, perhaps because he has been fully tube-fed since birth, removing all pressure to feed might help to reduce any anxiety he might experience when offered a bottle. However, the chance of him learning to bottle-feed while his nutritional needs are fully met via the tube is low. More so, if his sucking reflex has disappeared, which occurs between three to four months of age. NOTE: The loss of a baby’s sucking reflex doesn’t mean he can’t learn to bottle-feed. 

A baby—feeding-averse or not—might not get to the point of accepting the bottle or willingly consuming good volumes of milk while his nutritional needs are met through tube feeding. Other strategies, specific for your individual baby’s case, would need to be employed in conjunction with my feeding aversion program.

The solution to successful tube weaning is seldom as simple as pulling the baby’s tube out. Pulling the tube out without professional guidance to resolve your baby’s feeding issues could compromise his health. (Baby Care Advice tube weaning consultations can help to successfully tube wean babies who are capable of feeding orally while the tube remains in place to provide nutritional support as required).

During the consultation, a unique tube weaning program will be developed for your baby which is specific to their age and weight, and which takes into account their feeding history in great detail. We do not support attempting a tube wean in the absence of specific, guided, professional support; this is with baby's safety in mind, as our consultants closely monitor their progress along the way. 

If your baby is being tube fed, we invite you to connect with a consultant below:

Consultations