DD is 8.5 months, and I'm overdue to go back to work. Have spent the last 6 weeks trying to introduce bottles and sippy cups with no success whatsoever - she screams at the sight of a bottle and only teethes on the cups. Tried loads of brands to no avail. We didn't introduce a regular bottle early - naively thought that because she used to take the odd one when I went out it would be fine. Not any more - point blank refusal of all bottles, whether EBM or formula. She will take her formula (Neocate LCP as she's allergic to dairy) in food and via a spoon but not as a drink.
We are getting nowhere and I'm increasingly stressed about it as time passes. Lots of friends are advising us to go the cold turkey route and put up with a couple of days of yelling after which she'll eventually cave and take a bottle, so they say.
I've got reservations, but softly-softly isn't working and I'm ready to stop breastfeeding, as well as having to for work. But really worried about how to go about it.
Will abruptly stopping be grim for me? (Don't think I can express with a screaming hungry baby in the house so forget that - if we do it, it's all in.) I'd hoped to drop one feed at a time but that relies on her taking a bottle so not really an option.
Are we crazy to consider it while she's also at a clingy age? Will withdrawing the boob now be awful for separation anxiety?
Do we have to stop giving solids too in order that she's hungry enough to take the bottle? Will she get dehydrated?
Would really appreciate advice from those who've been through it and come out the other side.
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Cold turkey from breast to bottle - anyone been through it?
tinymeteor · 10/01/2015 15:42
I know you say you are ready to stop breastfeeding , but going back to work shouldn't make it an urgency - mine coped fine with food and water when I wasn't there, and fed when I was. Made my supply a bit up and down but babies are remarkably resilient like that.
Anyway, you could gradually wean her taking advantage if your absence through work to make it a bit more gentle on both of you? Neocate tastes rank anyway so I don't blame her! 
(2 dairy allergic babies here....)
Seriously I wouldn't try for bottles or worry about formula for just 2 days - as long as she will eat food and drink water then she will create a lot less for the childminder than you think. She may well take bottles from the childminder and never take them from you.... Or is that just my stubborn pickles?
I could have saved myself a whole lot of angst trying to get mine to take a bottle from me if I knew they would be just fine when I wasn't there.
In fact I gave up trying to get them on a bottle as they never took one from me. Anyone else if I wasn't there, yes. Me or if I was there - a big fat NO!
It's also about having my life back, being freer to accept offers of babysitting, etc. I'll miss nursing but have to stop sometime and I'm so ready to be free of the ugly bras and breast pump 
Also DH is having minor surgery in Feb so life will be complicated and bottle feeding would allow me to share then load with other family. In an ideal world I'd do a bit of both but it doesn't seem like DD is going to go with that plan.
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