Baby Wont Take a Bottle

[icegurl470]

Alright, so this is my 2nd breast fed child and I know from experience that getting them to take a bottle can be hard. I started offering her a bottle (pumped breast milk) at 5 weeks. It took a few days but she finally started doing it. I offered her a bottle everyday. Even offered her some thawed breastmilk to make sure she would take it (because thawed tastes different than fresh) and she took it a couple different times. Some days she takes it no problem, some days she doesnt. On the difficult days sometimes i would just give up and offer her the breast. I also have a toddler and its hard to spend a lot of time trying to give her a bottle..

Well, I think I've dug myself in a hole because I cant get her to take a bottle from me or my husband no matter how hard we try. I know she can, so I figured she would when she got hungry enough right? Well, I left her with my mom to go out for my birthday and she wouldnt take a bottle from her the whole 6+ hrs she was there! The next day i took my toddler to daycare and focused on pumping and offering just a bottle and it took awhile but i got her to take a couple, so i thought she was fine and relaxed a little. Then I slacked off a couple more days and didnt give her a bottle because of the holidays and now i cant get her to take one again! She went almost the whole day before i finally just had to give up and offer her the breast! What is going on! I just want to know that she take one from the daycare provider in two weeks when i return to work.. pls tell me she will! I was hoping she would be a pro by that time and I wouldnt have to worry, but now im not so sure.. I think shes just being REALLY stubborn and because she prefers the boob and knows I've eventually given up and given it to her in the past, she just refuses to drink from the bottle.. oops.. But my husband thinks its the bottle. They're medela wide based, slow flow, same i used with my first child, so thats probably not it right? Should i try other types of bottles? Give me your experiences please!

 

[coz]

Sounds just like my 6 month old, tryed him at 5 weeks with pumped breast milk for a few weeks on about 7 occasions he took from the bottle then just wouldnt take it al all, we tryed all different ones and its only been the last few weeks that ive finally managed to get him to drink out of a nuby beaker. We tryed everyhting like getting husband to give him bottle, breast feeding bottle, latex teats. Even now he doesnt seem to suck properly on the nuby teat but kind of chews it and gulps it down but im just glad he has it. Also my first breastfed son went straight from boob to nuby beaker at 6 months but with him i had never tryed a bottle with him before 6 months . Just keep trying or try a beaker at around 4/5 months x

 

[RaquelDee]

My 4.5 month old has been the same, we started trying with a bottle at around 5 weeks and had very limited success. We tried loads of different bottles and I expressed litres of milk, very little of which actually went in her. She would accept the teat in her mouth, but just not suck it (apart from the medela calma, which made her hysterical for some reason). However, we've had success in the last few weeks using a sippy cup (one with the non-spill valve removed so she doesn't have to suck it) and this is working much better. It's still a bit hit and miss and sometimes rather messy, but she will take milk from it and seems to be getting better at it. She's also recently started to reach for it and put it to her mouth, or even reach for cups I'm drinking from, which is a very encouraging sign.

I think it's not uncommon. Maybe we need an ongoing bottle refusal support thread?

 

[star25]

My sister went through every bottle going trying to stop breastfeeding with my niece
The only one she found worked straight away was a make called 'Breast flow'
you can get them from amazon and she took to them straight away where with every other bottle she wouldn't take a drop
Good luck!