HELP! Breast to bottle.

[bronarrr]

Hi,

I am really struggling to get my 4 month old on to a bottle. My little girl is exclusively breastfed and will not accept any bottle; I feel as though I have tried everything!

I have always expressed and given her it fresh to try and make it as similar as possible but no luck - I have tried various teats, shapes, sizes, textures... I have also tried introducing a dummy to see if it helps her notice the difference between suckles but she just gags and spits it out... I waited until 7 weeks (as advised) before introducing a bottle/dummy and feel this was my downfall.

I am thinking about skipping bottle now and just trying to get her straight on to a cup...

I bought a doidy cup but she didn't take to this very well as she kicked about a lot and too much milk would go in her mouth; I also bought a tommee tippee sippy cup (not free-flowing) but the teat is really hard and she doesn't understand that she needs to suck the teat to get milk out.

Does anybody have any advice on how to introduce cups successfully or what cups work best? Should I not feed her from a cup (as is advised with a bottle) or does it not matter with a cup?

Thanks in advance! :)

[katemeister]

Sorry no advice but bumping as I could have written this post myself!!

[McBaby]

I would keep going with the doidy. My DD was the same and finally got the doidy after a few weeks of trying.

Now at 18 months she is still unable to suck from a valves cup and isn't a massive fan of free flow cups. At least now I don't have the problem of weaning her off the bottle it dummy.

[bronarrr]

Thanks for your advice McBaby. I have only tried it a few times and my DH isn't very keen on the concept - DD seems to thrash about so its really difficult to get her to take the milk and some times too much milk goes in her mouth even though there was only an oz in the cup at a time...

How did you get over the thrashing about? Did you try when your DD was a little hungry like you would have to introduce a bottle?

Sorry for all the questions!

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Valve cups were no good for mine - she didn't understand how to suck on them so they were no better than bottles for her. You can take out the valves but this will make the TT very fast and might drown her! I would recommend a soft spout cup, either the Avent with the valve removed, or the Nuk soft spout which is free-flowing but not too fast.

From my very similar experience I would encourage you to manage your expectations, though. Even at nearly seven months she still can't take a full feed from a cup, although she will take a couple of ounces of water or formula (this is another trick that you can try if you are ready to introduce formula - the different taste can help IMO). Good luck.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Oh and re: waiting until seven weeks - I don't think this necessarily was your downfall. DD had a bottle from 2 weeks but still refused from seven weeks once she was old enough to realise the difference. I think that some bf babies will be bottle refusers no matter what!