Exclusively breast fed 4 month old won't take a bottle, any teat suggestions?

[Halfdrankbrew]

Just that really. I was meant to be going to visit some girlfriends for one night this weekend and was hoping to leave our 4 month old at home so I could have my first night off/time away from the baby but he's refusing to drink out the bottle. We also have a wedding next week too that we were meant to be going without kids, it's not looking good.

Our nearly 2 year old who was also breast fed would happily drink from the bottle at a similar age, mostly expressed milk but she'd have the occasional formula when I'd not stockpiled enough. I assumed our little boy would be the same. I've tried a couple of times with expressed milk in a tommee tippee closer to nature slow flow teat and also the medela teat that came with the pump. He spits both out and gets upset but is clearly hungry and goes mad once I actually offer him the boob.

I just wondered if there's anyone who has had a similar problem and if so was there a teat/brand their baby would take? I don't want to go out and buy every brand under the sun!

[disneyprincess87]

Hi. It took a while for my baby to get used to a bottle after being EBF. I had to warm teat up, rub some breast milk on the test so she knew what it was and had to have lots and lots of patience! I tried every day to get her to have a go, didn’t push it and never put lots of milk in the bottle as most of the time I had to throw it away! Good luck and I hope you find something that works! We used lanisol teats and Dr Browns x

[LazyDaisy6]

I'm having same problem with my 8mo. We've tried NUK latex (meant to be best for breastfed babies), MAM, TT closer to nature... all the typical mixed feeding ones. He finally took about an oz yesterday from a Dr Browns Preemie bottle and then maybe another oz today from a normal Dr Browns bottle with size 1 teat. It's SLOW but still progress I guess

However, looking back, I would now say choose one and persevere otherwise you will just cause more confusion. We originally tried the NUK and MAM ones as those are the dummies he takes and the teats are similar.

[Treezees]

The bottles from Lansinoh are great and worked for 5 girls in our NCT group. Both of mine have been refusers and I think it's just perseverance. Do it in the morning for second feed and again in the afternoon about an hour after they last had a BF so they aren't too hungry. I did it with formula as was less heartbreaking when it all went down the sink! Let them play with it and take it away the minute there are tears... After 3 days my 4 month old had a few sucks and then day 5 it was easy.

Probably not that helpful for this weekend! But then maybe just do it constantly for the next two days. But not when they are hungry or tired! Good luck. :)

[Halfdrankbrew]

Thanks for the tips and suggestions, I think I'll try the tt teats again and as you suggested with some formula at first or maybe just an oz of expressed milk (I was v upset pouring 5 oz of the good stuff down the sink the other night). If that doesn't work I'll try one of the other brands. I love breastfeeding but I need a couple of hours off once in a while!

Let's hope it works before next week, so I can have a few hours peace with a drink in my hand, fingers crossed .