How to stop BF baby who refuses bottle :(

[Cornberry]

My LO is almost 9 months old and I have been quite ill since she was born. Apart from the fatigue I have also lost a dramatic amount of weight and I am now 10 kg below my pre-pregnancy weight. I have had a number of medical investigations for a serious problem with swallowing possibly due to severe silent reflux which has made my life very difficult. I also seem to have developed some new food sensitivities. After a very bad case of vertigo complete with vomiting blood, I realise how run down I am and I think it's time to admit that, while my daughter seems to be thriving, breastfeeding is possibly doing me no good, or at least is compounding my health problems as I am totally drained. The problem is that I have no idea how to go about weaning her. She eats three meals a day now and has cut back on her feeds in the last month or so, but she feeds to sleep and I have no idea how to stop this habit. When we try to give her a bottle she will not have it and pushes it away. We have tried expressed milk, different formulas, skippy cup, different bottles. I'm not really keen to stop but finally I have exhausted every other avenue and my life is unmanageable with my conditions. A doctor told me sometimes if the weight loss is excessive it's preferable to stop. I had hoped to go to a year but I need to be well again. Any advice much appreciated.

[DoItTooJulia]

Wow, you sound very poorly. What a feat to get to 9 months! Amazing!

I stopped bf dc2 at 9 months. He had never had a bottle and wouldn't entertain one either.

In the end I went cold turkey. Just kept saying that there's no more booby milk, but there is cup/bottle milk. It took three days of bottle refusing before he eventually had a bottle of cows milk from a bottle with a latex nuk teat. I'd actually got a variety of bottles lined up and he pointed to that one (he had tried them all and refused them all previously!)

The latex teat was the clincher in this house. Moving forward he only had a bedtime bottle-just wouldn't take milk as a drink at all. So that solved the feeding to sleep issue. He could see that the bottle was finished and accepted it, so we cuddled to sleep instead.

It was hard for those three days, but I just made sure there were plenty of snacks and drinks available and cuddled him lots.

I did get quite engorged and uncomfortable so I put Savoy cabbage in my bra, took ibuprofen and sudofed and hand expressed the worst off in a warm shower.

I think that's everything, I remember feelin there was very little out there about stopping, so feel free to ask away!

Good luck and I hope you're better soon.

[Cornberry]

Thanks for your reply. I'm concerned about cold turkey as I've heard it can have quite a negative impact on the mum and I don't want any extra health issues! If I don't offer during the day she will just eat but I feel she must need milk feeds as well as food?

[DoItTooJulia]

Just increase the milky food-porridge, macaroni cheese, rice pudding, custard if you're worried about milk intake.

If you can find a gentle way of doing it, that's fab, it's just that I didn't, and believe me I tried!

Hopefully someone with more knowledge( tiktok if she's still around) will be along soon!

[Cornberry]

Thanks, I might have to try that I guess. Impossible to know how much milk BF babies consume!