From breast to bottle

[luluhollybolly]

has anyone got any pearls of wisdom...
I am currently trying to wean my daughter and am trying to get her to start taking milk from an alternative to my breast. She looks at me as if I am crazy!

I am going back to work soon as she still will not take a bottle or a cup, I have been trying for a while.

Has anyone got any advice?

[LittleMissBliss]

have you tried a doidy cup?

[preggersplayspop]

How old is your daughter?

[somebodyhelpme]

have you tried getting someone else to feed her? Do you want to stop bf compleatly? how long are you at work for? does she need to have a milk feed whilst you are not there?
Sorry loads of questions!

[GreenMonkies]

I agree with your daughter, I think you are crazy to be trying to wean her from the breast too!

You can work and breastfeed, either by expressing or just feeding her mornings and evenings and weekends (ie, outside work hours).

Both my daughters hated the Avent bottles/teats, but liked the tommee tippee ones (nuby and closer to nature) but if she is over 6 months she can use a cup rather than a bottle if need be. Most bf babies take a bottle/cup of ebm from someone other than mum if mum is not there. As long as she is happy and secure at the childminder/nursery then she will almost certainly be fine and won't starve or dehyrdate herself. If she is eating a reasonable amount of solids (both mine ate far more solids at nursery than they did at home) and has access to ebm or water then she'll be fine.

I know it's stressful, its a huge thing to worry about on top of going back to work, but she will be fine I promise you. Do consider not weaning her totally, you'll really love the tea-time/end of the working day feed as the two of you sit down together and nurse and reconnect, it has been the best part of my working day without a doubt!

Monkies

[luluhollybolly]

I am planning on expressing milk for her whilst I am at work but have been worrying about her not taking it.

I will be back full time so she will definately need some.

I will still give her a milk feed first thing and before bed.

How much would she need during the day???

Having never given her expressed milk I haven't got a clue how much she eats.....

My DH has tried feeding her but she's not really interested.

She will be 8 months when I go back.

[GreenMonkies]

OK, Lulu,

at 8 months she will be a much bigger baby than she is now, it's freaky how fast they change and grow and develop at this stage. As long as she is taking fluids during the day she will be fine. If she is weaned onto pureed foods she will be getting fluids that way too, if you BLW her she'l probably happily take water from a cup too.

If she really hates a bottle then a soft spouted cup is a good idea, both of mine have been happy with the avent "magic" cups with the white soft spout. Leaving your baby for a whole day is not fun, and adding to it the stress of her not liking bottles makes it all the harder. Where will she be whilst you are at work? I have a nursery on-site at the hospital I work in, so I used to go over to the nursery at lunchtime and feed them until they were about a year old. (I was expressing morning and afternoon too, but they only drank about half of what I expressed, preferring to wait for me, so I used to donate the surplus to the milk bank.) Feeding them myself at lunchtime like this not only made sure they were having a good drink in the middle of the day, but also meant that for the first 6 months we were only apart for 4 hours or so at a time, which made being back at work much easier on both of us. You are entitled to "nursing breaks" instead of expressing breaks if she really won't take any other fluids from any other source.

In the mean time try giving her sippy cups of water ad-lib and see how she gets on, as long as she'll take some fluids during the day, even if it's only water and not ebm, it's ok.

Good luck!

Monkies

[cafebistro]

My DD is 6 months and ebf but i have tried her with ebm from a bottle several times and she's never been interested. I have just tried her with a cup ( tommee tippee first cup) and she took water from it ( i had no ebm to give to her). So maybe that is the way forward Lulu...just miss out the bottle altogether and find a cup she likes. If your going to be feeding her twice a day and she's having solids too she wont starve.Good luck.

[preggersplayspop]

I had some (limited) success with the NUK cup (though I reckon I tried every cup out there!), which has a softish spout. I started back at work when DS was 11 mo and by that time he was able to use one of the cups with a soft straw in it (I think its Tommy Tippee), though he only has water from it.

He has a BF before and after work still and its working well for us.

The nursery he goes to said that BF babies often prefer a cups with a straw in, and while I don't know if this is true or not, it was definitely the case for us.

[julesmb]

My dd is 5 months and I couldnt get her to take the bottle for ages. In the last week its just clicked into place - success achieved by A) persistence (trying one feed everyday) B) getting my mother to try and c) using the tommee tippee bottles with teats designed for 6 months plus as my let down is pretty fast... Keep trying I'm sure you'll get there - i now give her a formula feed before bed (she was exclusively breastfed before) and she screams and scrabbles frantically to get it back now if I stop to wind her!

Good luck x

[Zeeky]

Have you tried the Nuk bottles with a latex teat? DS was ebf until 5 mths, and I has tried off and on before that to introduce a bottle but he was having none of it. Once he's been on solids for a couple of weeks I tried him with the bottle and he suddenly opening his mouth for it and sat back and drank the whole lot! He seemed to prefer the latex teats to start with but now takes silicon ones too.

HV recommended the NUK with latex teats as she sais a lot of BF babies prefer the colour of latex as it look more like a real boob and it softer than silicon.

Many of my friends who have ebf have gone straight onto a cup, and it has avoided the whole problem of weaning from a bottle to cup which I am currently going through! Part of me wishes that I gone down this route, but at the time, bottle-feeding was the easiest for me.