BF baby won't take bottle

[WhatIsSleep123]

Posting here for traffic. NC as I need some help to get my 6 month old baby to sleep more and drink milk from a bottle.

What I don't understand is: although he's never had formula before, he had expressed milk from a bottle before and it was fine. Now he totally refuses it, takes ages to have 10-20ml of expressed milk from a bottle. I'm going back to work soon and don't know what to do. My other DC didn't have any problems.

Please help. Did you DC refuse to take a bottle? What did you do?

@SweetHummingbird I'm glad to hear it worked for you. I will try the same, thank you!

@Athena51 did you do anything for him to take a sippy cup?

@FusionChefGeoff I will try warming the teat too. I am happy to try anything at the moment.

Have you tried one of those tommee tippee free flow sippy cups that cost about £1.50. Go out and get someone else to do the feed. Let DC hold the cup of they want and try to feed them self. No guarantees of course but I went back to work at 5-6 months with both of my bottle refusing breastfed babies and this worked with both of them. Good luck. It will be ok!

@Believeitornot I will check this bottle, thank you.
We have this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuby-Simply-Grip-N-Sip/dp/B00OHUQOHC/ref=sr11_8?s=baby&ie=UTF8&qid=1539031500&sr=1-8&keywords=nuby+cup

I've tried a little bit of milk and it was sweet. It smelled a bit different though, not like cow's milk though.

@glasshalfsomething it seems that babies prefer hot milk then. Will try it too!

My dd likes the straw because she didn’t have to tip it up.

What’s the childcare option for when you go back to work?

@parietal Good idea. Need to stick to something instead of trying everything lol

@secretgirl I'm glad your little one took the bottle. DH is trying to take him away for long periods of time, to try and give him a bottle but it's not working. Over the weekend, he was away for over 5h and still refused to drink from a bottle. He was happy to BF when he got home though.

Haven't seen if this has been asked, but are you trying two give bottle yourself? My two would never take a bottle from me, but if I wasn't close by would happily take one from someone else

@badg3r I have one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/Essentials-Freeflow-Tommee-Tippee-Turquoise/dp/B076Q87RTT/ref=pdsbss752??encoding=UTF8&pdrddi=B076Q87RTT&pdrddr=54126d13-cb3c-11e8-819b-196af8858ff7&pdrddw=07yfG&pdrddwg=LgTt8&pfrddi=desktop-dp-sims&pfrddm=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pfrddp=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pfrddr=E3QR5QNF53CM6YZYGYPX&pfrdds=desktop-dp-sims&pfrddt=40701&psc=1&refRID=E3QR5QNF53CM6YZYGYPX and the baby closes his mouth as soon as milk comes out of it!

Doidy cup worked for us

*although first few times had to hold them like he was going to bf them and have very kind helpful neighbor poke bottle in under his arm, sounded hilarious

@Bambamber I've never heard of them before but just googled and looks interesting.

Both of mine refused bottles from when they were exactly 3 months. Just stopped. Wouldn't take any form of milk from any form of bottle and we tried them all! My first I went to work after 10 months. Not sure when you go back? She was eating well though and so was OK with one bf in morning one after work and one at night.

I've heard people say they will take it eventually from someone else if you go out all day but it will be traumatic. So I wasn't brave enough to do this!

Mine drank a little bit of water from a cup so I just gave this and made sure they got milk in cooking when I was dropping feeds. Lots of cheese sauces, porridge made with milk, and they loved yoghurt. And gave vitamins. It was worrying but there isn't much else you can do.

@Believeitornot in the first few months we will have help from family, then nursery.
The straw bottle looks really good.

@dontforgetbilly The baby cries so much when DH is trying to give him a bottle that it sounds like someone is trying to kill him. It's painful trying to watch it.
The baby seems to drink a bit more (only 10-20ml) if I try to feed with a bottle.

@WhatIsSleep123 Gosh, I'm trying to remember as he's 24 now and it was a long time ago

I think I expressed milk and got him used to the cup before I went back to work. My mum looked after him though so I had a lot of support from her. I tried a few times to get him to take a bottle but he never would (or a dummy).

I carried on BF him until was about 14 months I think. He didn't sleep through the night until he was over a year unfortunately. I still remember how tired I was with no sleep and a full time job. Thank God I was young or I wouldn't have survived!

@AmIRightOrAMeringue we are starting to think that the baby is against plastic as he won't drink water from a bottle/ cup either.

Try a doidy cup, it’s the same lapping action as breastfeeding.

If family are looking after him for the first few months can they bring him to you for a feed during the day? Your workplace have to allow this. They also must provide you with a private, lockable room to express in and access to a fridge.

Mine just flat out refused bottles. I’ve tried every bottle I could find and various temperatures and so on. Once she started solids I used my leftover expressed milk in her porridge etc. She won’t take milk in a sippy cup either (10 mos old now) but if I leave her for 5-6 hours will eat solids and drink water. Starting nursery tomorrow and fingers crossed this works.

For sleeping through the night we eventually did some gentle sleep training since I was going mad otherwise. Partner couldn’t give me a break because of the bottle refusing and with PND I was really going around the bend.

@Athena51 funny enough the baby takes a dummy, but bluntly refuses a bottle. Hopefully he will take it soon and I won't remember anything in a few years

@BirdBrain85 how come I've never heard about doidy cups before this evening?!

@kaytee87 at the moment the baby feeds every 2h, sometimes it's more like 1h-1.5h. The baby would basically have to stay at work with me all day. At night he feeds every 4h