4.5 month old refusing bottle

[SwissMiss]

Hi girls,

I feel a bit dopey posting this as Jason is my third baby blush but I'm stuck and never had this with my other two!
I'm back at work and boy-o is REFUSING to take a bottle!!! He took it fine for our month-long 'adaptation' period with the childminder in May/June. Then she went on holiday for three weeks and, silly me, I didn't keep up with the occasional bottle. Now he won't take it at all!!! Literally spits it out and screams/cries/turns his head! I've been back to work for two days and spent the majority of my day driving back and forth to nurse him!!!

Any tips/ideas? I'm going to start him on midday cereal/purees next week but I really do NEED this to work!!!! HELP!

ETA: Its EBM in the bottle, btw... I've been pumping myself raw for the past two months to build up a reserve for going back to work. I swear if I have to chuck it all I think I will die!

Thx

 

[petite ping]

This is what happened with LO1. I gave her an occasional bottle (with formula) from 5 weeks - this was mainly when we were out and about and she took it with no problems. Then I stopped doing so and only started giving her the bottle around 12 weeks as she was going into daycare. I was never a big "producer" so pumping was out of the question. She totally refused the bottle and every time we tried it was an hour long screaming fit.

It took us 3 weeks to get her to take the bottle without screaming. You just have to be persistant. Don't offer the breast immediately after if he refuses the bottle...I think you need to wait at least 20 minutes so he won't think that if he refuses the bottle, he will automatically get the breast.

With LO2 I've just started weaning her as she will be going to the nanny soon. This time I waited until I was ready to go all the way. She is 2 months now and so far so good. (BTW I heard that weaning to the bottle after 10 weeks is way more complicated as baby usually has established their feeding habits.