Breast to beaker - new development on feeding..advice needed!

[futurity]

Hi

I have been giving my totally breastfed baby (6 months old) water with a Heinz beaker at meal time and that was going fine..he sucked at it with ease.

About a week ago I decided to replace the breast with beaker to give him formula at 11am before his lunch. This went well..he took 4oz and then had dinner. The next day he had 5oz and not a problem..he only cried when he had had enough and wasn't looking for my breast so I was happy to continue with b/f at other times as I figured he would eventually drop this milk to favour lunch.

Four days and there was no problem but then on the fifth he wouldn't suck on the beaker at all..he would just munch on it like he had forgotten how to suck..that's the best way of explaining it! After a while he got very fed up and SCREAMED the place down! My hv had said not to offer breast if that happened and to just carry on as normal ..I was assuming that this sort of reaction may happen after the second day of trying the beaker..not after 4 successful days where he was up to 6oz!

I tried yesterday with the beaker of milk and the same reaction..wouldn't suck at all and would scream whilst I started to feed him food and would finally calm down when the food had gone down and he felt a bit more full up.

Today I just gave him food and again he screamed through the first mouthfulls of food but I just kept going and he ate the lot and pudding. He will not suck at all now at the beaker for water which he used to do..he just chews on it.

I will speak to my hv tomorrow but I just wanted to know whether others had had a similar issue of baby rejecting milk in favour of food. One of my friends baby did the same thing at this age and dropped the milk feed to happily have food but ds seems really frustrated at the speed of the feeding (he is no good at finger foods..also frustrates him!). I am just not sure whether all this fuss is because of wanting the breast and whether I should introduce it again..I am reluctant to as he doesn't seem to be missing the milk as he doesn't have another milk feed until mid afternoon and is still fine with that.

Also..any others had experience of baby "forgetting" how to suck on a beaker!

Sorry it is a bit long..just wanted some opinions!

[PamT]

Could he be teething? His gums might be a bit painful and cause the screaming.

[mears]

Futurity - can I ask out of curiosity why you are introducing formula now. As he has been totally breastfed for 6 months it seems unecessary to give formula prior to giving him a meal.
Once he is established on solids you can reduce the amount of breastfeeds if that is hat you want to do without the necessity of introducing formula. I would not upset him with persevering but give him drinks of water/dilute juice from a beaker instead and give him the breast at mealtimes. I would give him his solids first and themn the breast and he will start to reduce the amount he takes naturally.

[futurity]

I am thinking now that it is teething after talking to some other Mum's and describing ds's behaviour in general recently.

I was getting quite down about breastfeeding recently and wanted to give up but the HV suggested just giving up one feed and to try to use the beaker. That way if I wasn't sure about giving up (which I wasn't..I do still enjoy it) it would not have to be a all or nothing solution.

This was working fine for me and Adam until the other day but I am now thinking that it is the beaker giving him problems to his gums as PamT suggested.