Ideas to coax a BF 7 mo into taking formula??

[MildWest]

Have EBF DD so far, she's almost 7 months and we've been weaning (sort of) for about 1 month.

She has 4 feeds a day (7am, 11ish, 3ish and 7pm).

She's taken a bottle of EBM once a week or so for ages.

I've tried 2 bottles of formula this week and both were refused. Yesterday, it then took a while for DH to get her to drink a bottle of EBM.

I want to drop the 11am and 3pm feeds over the next month or so and replace with FF, with a view to the 11am feed becoming lunch at some point anyway.

Anyone got any tips for getting DD to accept formula? Should I just keep trying every few days? Don't want to balls it up so she won't take a bottle at all. Anyone tried mixing EBM with formula and gradually reducing the amount of EBM, for example?

Or, would it be better to bypass bottles all together and just offer formula from a cup?

TIA

[billyog]

I'm in a similiar position, dd is 7mths. She's just started to take a bottle for us, been trying for about a month. Persistence was the key i think. Also, at feed times i put a bottle with a few oz in on the table and just let her play with it. I also gave her some formula from a cup.
She's still pretty fickle though and will take a bottle one day and refuse the next , i've tipped alot of formula down the sink!
Stick with it.

[AcademicMum]

If it were me, I'd try mixing EBM with formula and gradually replacing it. We did this to get DS2 onto nasty hypoallergenic formula and it took around 2 weeks before the feed was 100% formula (strangely though, we very quickly got to a 50/50 mix and then has to go very slowly from there. I also know others who have found the same). Could you otherwise start using formula to mix with some of her food e.g. with porridge or similar so she slowly gets used to the taste? (Obviously this is no good if you are not going down the puree route...).

It's hard though and I wish that people would warn in advice that breastfed babies don't generally seem to take to kindly to formula after a certain time. At least she is already used to a bottle though and that is half the battle won.