solely breastfed and now wont take a bottle..?

marie1000950 · Mar 19, 2011 5:58PM

My little man is 5 months, very contented breast feeder but i'm trying to top up his milk at bedtimes to hopefully stop his twice a night wakes but he wont take a bottle- he just chews it and moans! i've tried my breast milk in a bottle, i've triedtwo different bottles, i'm now trying to make him take bottle by not breast feeding him but its 3pm and he hasnt had anything since 7am and its upsetting me seeing him upset yet he still is not taking the bottle???

help??

marie

earwig1971 · Mar 18, 2011 11:48AM

Hi Marie....you'll see from a couple of other threads that there are a few of us struggling with this one. Not easy is it?? The first bit of advice I was given was that it's not much use waiting until they're screaming hungry, more effective when they're not frantic for food. These are the points that have been offered to myself:

Don't feed baby the bottle yourself...ask someone to do it for you, with you preferably elsewhere in the house so that baby can't see or smell you or he'll want you;

Have the person wear something of yours so that there is a familiar scent, but it's not of your boobs and milk;

Make sure you have the correct teats...we were using slo-flo but my boobs fire out milk at a rate of knots so clearly that was different for baby and not working and we had to switch to vari-flo;

Try it first with expressed milk rather than formula, so that the taste is the same;

Make sure the milk is pretty warm as baby is used to it coming out of you warmer than room temperature;

Obviously you've tried most of this, but I think the most important tip is for someone else to do the bottle-feeding as a way of helping baby separate the action of feeding from being attached to you.

I would love to be more helpful, but as I haven't got my lo onto the bottle yet, she's 8wks, I am in no position to tell you the magic answer!

If you find it before I do....let me know!!!

Hope he quietens down for you soon xx

marie1000950 · Mar 18, 2011 12:06PM

Thank you - I havent tried vari flo so i'l try that next, he's getting really upset now and has sucked twice - a total amount of 1/4 of an oz since i breast fed him at 7am!

Given up, its too upsetting. Will try getting hubby to feed him, another day..

Marie...xxx

angel100 · Mar 18, 2011 4:08PM

Hi hun, sorry im probably not going to be much help, just wanted to sympathise with you, my lo is also 5months and we have been trying to get her to take a bottle for month's but she just isnt interested. I have now started the process of giving her a sippy cup as she doesnt get upset when we offer it. I wont give up offering the bottle as i have heard of babies all of a sudden just taking to it. Hope you have some success soon, i can def sympathise with the nighttime feeds, my lo is still up between 2 and 4 times a night.xx

NIKKINOOS · Mar 18, 2011 4:31PM

I am also not going to be much help i'm afriad. My LO never took a bottle apart from a couple of times when he was a few weeks old but since about 12 weeks point blank refused. I tried for months and in the end he took it from a TT beaker with a free flow spout. He is now nearly 8 months. I have now just replaced my daytime breast feeds with a beaker of formula. Have you tried offering it to your LO in a beaker? x

mummy2izzy · Mar 18, 2011 4:54PM

Well....at least i'm not the only one having this problem!

Izzy has been exclusively BF since birth and is now 32 weeks. Since about 5 months ive been trying hard to get her onto the bottle.She would always have her morning feed from me but after 10am and during lunch I decided to offer every day the bottle. At first she just chewed it and played with it but as the weeks went on she started to take half an ounce and then a bit more and then some more. She will only ever take around 3oz but then she didnt ever feed a lot from me. She has a bottle until around 3pm and then is bf after this time.

Once izzy was 28 weeks she started to sleep through the night but if she didnt have the correct milk intake she would wake up at night.

The next step is to try and get her to take the 5pm feed.These babies are tinkers!!!

Renee+2 · Mar 18, 2011 4:57PM

my baby is 1 and wont take a bottle. then we ought on recommendation from a bf peer support breasflow bottles. she would drink from it once, and only from me! not much good as i can feed her without a bottle, but it might work for a little baby

maydaychild · Mar 18, 2011 5:05PM

this is really common would you beleive!

Well in my experience, I had to try and try and try and eventually he did accept bottle

start with one feed when there is someone else to give it! You can move the time of this at a later stage, tho I guess this is easier said than done.

def try variflow teats, the tommee tippee ones were only ones accepted by my LO.

if all else fails, then accept defeat! You can keep breastfeeding through food weaning! Then go onto tommee tippe sipee cups - there are some with two holes and some with three so start with a two!

good luck

earwig1971 · Mar 18, 2011 5:29PM

oh jeez....now I'm starting to panic over this! I can't possibly continue to breastfeed once I'm back in work in 4 weeks, as I'll be out of the house from 7.30am til about 7pm. I work 30 miles from home so there's no way I can expect my oh to bring her to me a feeding time, he'd spend his life on the dual carriageway! Not to mention the fuel cost!!! ....but it sounds like it's impossible to get these little munchkins to take a bottle once they've enjoyed a bit of boob!!!

Is my lo too young to try a sippy cup?? She's 9 weeks tomorrow and is quite happy to drink gripe water from a teaspoon....

angel100 · Mar 19, 2011 10:17AM

Renee i tried the breastflow and found them quite good, my lo would have that in her mouth even if she wouldnt drink from it but like you only from me which defeats the purpose coz i would just feed her rather that give bottle, only reason i want her to take a bottle is so i can do a few hours at work and maybe get a few hours off now and again,lol.

Earwig i would just keep going, in the worst case could you try feeding from a syringe, we had to do that with my first when we had to top her up with formula when she wasnt gaining weight, i know its a bit of a faff but as long as you knew she was gettin something while you were away and you probably find that if you arent there during the day and hubby keeps offering the bottle then she would hopefully start taking it.xxx

earwig1971 · Mar 19, 2011 5:58PM

hi angel100....I have thought about having to resort to the syringe if all else fails and hoping that Mia will just give up her protests once she realises that mummy isn't coming back to the house for a while, no matter how much she screams!..good to know that syringing works, thanks.

I just don't want my hubby to have to deal with the trauma of a screaming baby so I'm gonna try my utmost to persuading her to take a bottle before I go back to work so that at least his eardrums won't bleed every day!

solely breastfed and now wont take a bottle..?

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