Bottle refusing 3 month old

[tappitytaptap]

My DS, 3 months, has mostly been breastfed with the exception of a bottle or two of formula and when he was in special care, was tubefed a mix of my breastmilk and Aptamil. I didn't really want to breastfeed in the first place, was never massively keen, and am now feeling utterly trapped. He will now not take a bottle of expressed milk or formula. I absolutely loathe expressing so I want to switch him to formula. Had been planning to do this gradually, a feed a week. Tried with Tommee Tippee bottles as that is what he has taken in the past, me, DH, my dad. Also tried heating it in case it was too cold for him. I then decided today to try him with the formula on a spoon as thought would just check it wasn't the taste. He took a little but mostly made a face and spat it out. This is the ready made stuff rather than powder, he has never had powder. Do different formulas have different tastes? Wondering if there is another I can try? Tastes quite nice to me! I have been in tears, am so so upset, I want DH to be able to feed him and feel like a prisoner as I can't go anywhere without him. My left nipple is also sometimes quite sore, and I am utterly sick of breastfeeding, really need to stop for my own sanity.

[lcoc2015]

I have an 7 month old who still wont take the bottle. Having said that at 4 months i felt sick of bfeeding and very trapped but since starting solids everything is a bit more predictable and i can "escape" for longer periods of time! So there is hope even if your baby never takes a bottle. I havent been very consisten in getting her to take a bottle and i think that could be the key!

We had weight gain issues with my baby so i never did cold turkey on her - but the two times recently that she in any way entertained a bottle/formula were when i got held up and it was 3 hours after her feed was due. So i think they will drink it if they get hungry enough.

Nuk bottles with the latex teat are the only ones she will drink from also. The feel of latex in the mouth is much less "plasticy" than the other teats.

I was also curious about the tastes - I tasted a bunch of the formulas and i found the hipp organic one to be closest to actual breastmilk seems to be a sweeter taste. The aptimil one is rank (tastes of fish for some bizarre reason!)

Anyhow try the nuk bottles, warmed hipp organic formula, dip the teat in the warmed milk (or better your breastmilk) and have someone else offer it when the baby is hungry.

The alternate approach if that doesnt work is to offer it as a top up after each feed when the baby is satisfied to try and get him to play with the teat and get ised to the feel of it in his mouth. That worked eventually for another pal of mine.

One other approach was to express and bottle feed for a feed or two each day that but gradually replace 1 oz of breastmilk with formula per week until they graduate to 100% formula.

Hope some of those work for you!

[GlenBelt]

Couple of things could be worth a try; different babies get on with different tears so it's worth trying a few, as pp said, let baby get used to the feel of the bottle in his mouth, he may get more comfortable with it. Also have you tried cup feeding? If he takes to it you could use it short term to give yourself a bit of a break. We had to use this method when we had to top up with formula, can be a little messy to start with but may just give you that bit of respite.