Bottle feeding - how?!

[Andv]

Hi
My almost 5 month old baby won’t take a bottle as has been always bfed. Any suggestions?

Look up paced bottle feeding and try bottles designed for breastfed babies like Medela and Lansinoh Momma. Choose a slow flow teat. Start with expressed breastmilk rather than formula if you are able to.

Can your partner feed with the bottle and you leave the room entirely?

It will be difficult for you to get him to take a bottle from you.

Try a shot glass sized glass or sippy cup without a spout. DD never took a bottle.

Don’t bother even trying. I doubt you’ll have any luck. Get him used to expressed milk in a sippy cup as they can be introduced from four months. Even if he doesn’t take much it doesn’t matter. My DS1 never took a bottle and was in nursery part time from 5mo then full time from 8mo. They added expressed BM to his food once he started on solids and gave him extra yoghurts to make up any day time milk deficit. Then he had loads of feeds before and after nursery. He’s now a very, very active and tall 8yo.

Sorry - I’ve assumed him. Could be a her. Advice is the same.

Cup. Neither of my EBF babies took bottles no matter what I did. We used the Munchkin Miracle 360 cup from somewhere around 4 months. You can get them from Tesco.

You might need to try different teats. Some might be more readily accepted than others.
Latex (the yellow sort) might be more successful as they transfer heat better and are softer than the clear silicone. We found NUK worked quite well but your mileage may, as always, vary.

Just keep trying - easier said than done, I know.

I had this with both of mine at about 5 months - I just didn’t have enough milk despite feeding them (trying to) for hours.
At the time there was no variety of teats, just the bog standard ones - but worth trying different ones now.
They did both take the bottle eventually - much later it was even harder to wean them off it!

Same as what pp said, if it's you doing it it might be difficult to start with. Do you have someone to help?
My second DD was a bit of a nightmare taking a bottle, have you tried a few different types of bottles?
My OH ended up making a barrier of muslins between him and her so she couldnt see him and then she took the bottle! It was really funny, I would walk in the room and he would have a muslin over his head 😂 but hey whatever works!!! Now she doesnt need it and will take a bottle from him happily. I need to properly try again, she kicked off when I tried to give it to her!

Thank you everyone for the replies! I’ve tried different bottles but always with formula so will swap to breast milk and will definitely try the sippy cup. It’s really hard hear her crying and not going to nurse her :(

As above, has your partner tried?

Why have you had to stop and how long for? I had to take medication one day and it was the longest day ever! DD was also 5 months and I couldn’t feed her for 12 hours. She took literally one spoon of previously expressed milk. I tried every bottle/glass/syringe/milk combination I could but she was having none of it. Not even when DH came home. I even tried some fruit purée in desperation, wasn’t impressed! She also never took a dummy even though I tried all the different ones. Only wanted her thumb...or me.

My little girl never took a bottle, went straight to sippy cup x

Oh yeah and she wouldn't take formula just breast milk x

Just and update on this - so I've been trying for a few days ( maybe 2 or 3 ) in the mornings when she was in a good mood. Yesterday she finally drunk a little bit of formula ( I gave formula as I previously I pumped milk and end up down the sink 🙃) and Today she drunk couple of bottles of bm !
To those mummies trying to bottle train your babies - keep trying! Xx

I have been trying to bottle feed my 6 months baby for a month, trying 2 a day with crying and tears from the baby and no success.
I have tried 3 kinds of bottles and nothing happened. I am desesperate, I need to come
back to work and cannot express milk. What can I do? this problem is killing me, not sleeping and stressed. Thanks