8 mo won't take a bottle or cup - help!

[Fishandjam]

Please can anyone help? DD (8 months), just started properly on solids and EBF until now, will NOT take a bottle or cup of milk or water. This is turning into a major problem as I'm due back at work soon! She currently does one morning a week at nursery, and when I'm back at work she'll do three full days. I'd really like to up her to a full day next month, so she has a full month to get used to one day a week before she has to go to three days a week. But I'm just worried she'll get hugely dehydrated! Already when I pick her up after her morning at nursery (when she's drunk nothing at all during her time there), she feeds like buggery (and is usually constipated the next day, which I can only put down to insufficient fluid intake the previous day).

Thing is, I know the little fecker can drink from a bottle as she's done it for me a few times before. I just don't know how to crack the current impasse.

These are the things I have tried unsuccessfully over the last few weeks:

• different bottles and teats (Tommee Tippee, Dr Brown, and teats 1-3)
  
• different feeding positions and locations
  
• expressed BM or formula
  
• someone other than me feeding her
  

I really hope there's a solution other than allowing her to feed all night - we've only just got her to sleep through from 11pm to 6am, after months of broken nights! If I have to go to work on broken nights' sleep, I will go loopy (and probably be fired into the bargain)...

[Fishandjam]

[McBaby]

Have you tried doidy cup. I have. Very stubborn bottle/cup refuser but she will use doidy cup occasionally especially if she sees someone drinking from a glass first!

[ExBrightonBell]

Hi. My pfb ds is only just 7 months so I'm no expert... but didn't want to read and run.

[Apologies if you've tried these things already]

Have you tried warm water instead of giving cold water? My ds is more keen if the water is body temp.

How about a sippy cup (without the valve so it is free flow)? You could let her play with a sippy cup to get used to it and she may begin to then drink from it (after soaking herself of course!).

Some of my mum friends have reported success with a stage 3 bottle with a built in straw - this can work for bf babies as the sucking is similar to bf.

Finally have you tried a doidy cup? Some babies get on well with these rather than bottles. They are supposed to be off bottles by 1 yr old anyway (I think?) so you may have just got her used to one and then have to move to a cup anyway!

Other than that, I think that if she was very thirsty at nursery she would eventually drink from whatever was offered. Does the nursery have any thoughts, as this must be something they come across relatively often?