My 7 week old son is really fighting taking a bottle. He is breastfed but from the time he was 3 days old we have been giving him expressed milk from a bottle when we are out and about, and he's taken it with no issues. We also started giving him a formula feed at night about 3 weeks ago in an effort to a) get him used to the taste as I am planning on slowly stopping breastfeeding and expressing before I go back to work in October and b) try and get him to sleep a little longer at night (he only sleeps for about 2 hours between feeds). He gulped it down with no complaints the first 2-3 times then started to resist, even when I know he's hungry, he just cries and mouths around the teat, he'll take a little bit, maybe 30-40 MLS over half an hour but it's a fight the whole time, especially when his dad tries (he'll take it a bit more easily from me). I have tried changing to medium flow teats (my milk lets down extremely fast so he is used to gulping a lot down quickly and I thought maybe he was frustrated with the slow flow) and changing to a different brand of bottle (he has always taken the Tommee Tippee closer to nature without an issue until now, I've also tried the Nuby natural touch) with no joy. My health visitor just said to keep trying every day and eventually he'll get used to it but it gets to the point where he's so upset and so hungry that I feel I have to breastfeed him just to calm him down. I went out tonight for the first time without him, just for a couple of hours, and his dad had to call me to come home as he just would not take any food at all and was inconsolable. I got home, breastfed him and he fed ravenously and then fell straight asleep but I really need to be able to leave him when I need to, as I have KIT days coming up where I'll be in the office for about 4 hours at a time.
I am just wondering whether anyone has any other advice? If we hadn't introduced the bottle earlier I would feel better just powering through it but I can't see what might have triggered the switch to him refusing it :(
Thanks in advance!!
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Infant feeding
Struggling to get 7 week old to take bottle
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MujosMama · 03/08/2017 21:51
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