he won't take a bottle

[hercsmum]

Hi has anyone got any good tips, i have a five month old who i have exclusively breast fed, but i feel like my milk is drying up and frankly i'm exhausted. I'd love to top him up with a bit of formula and prepare to stop breastfeeding in a couple of months, but try to put a bottle in his mouth and he goes crazy, cries his head off, or just chews the teat and wont drink. How can i get him to take one?

Couple of things that MIGHT work for you (of course all babies are different)...

Someone else giving him the bottle (DP/Mother/friend)

Different teats (Closer to Nature/Breastflow/Nuk)

Well done for coming so far with the breastfeeding...

Hate to tell you this but my DS1 simply refused to take a bottle from around 6mo (he had had a couple of ebm bottles when smaller which he took no problems). I tried different teats etc etc but no good - even now he's 2.5 and screws his face up at the sight of DS2's bottles.

As he is coming towards weaning age could you try starting with a sippy cup? If he will take the formula out of this there is no reason for him to ever have a bottle (and no need to try and break the habit later on).

Also, just a note with regard your milk drying up - it most likely isn't. After a while your breasts are just better at regulating themselves so you are much less likely to have that "full" feeling. That's what has happened to me both times, anyway. HTH

The new tommee tippee Tip it Up seems to work really well for my DD but she is a little older (11 months) I struggled to get her to take milk until I found this one. There is one from 4 months - it says "lip touch tenchology"!! whatever that it is but milk does seem to come out without too trouble which I think is always the problem they just don't know what to do. However just to say I am a sippy cup junkie I have everyone going between my DS (nearly 3) and DD! But I love this one.

Also agree with what chunkamatic says re supply - you are close to weaning as well so he may well start to drop feeds soon anyway.

Why do you feel your milk is drying up? Is it because your boobs no longer feel full? At 5 months your boobs know what they're doing - they produce just enough. It's NOT likely that after 5 months of successful breastfeeding your supply has suddenly dried up.

I just bought the tommee tippee bottle, I think it's the 'closer to nature' one for same reasons - DD is 13 weeks and won't take a bottle of ebm from DH or me (but did at 5 weeks, darn, we should have kept it up maybe.) I also bought something called a Doidy cup from John Lewis last week, having seen it recommended on a similar thread here, I thought I had reasonable success getting DD to drink from it last week, but DH tried last night and refused to carry on because he was worried about getting milk into her lungs (I have no idea whether that was a real possibility or not). My best mate from work swears by Doidy cups and goes straight onto them rather than using bottles at all. I am going to ask DH to try the 'closer to nature' today.

Agree with everyone else, sure your milk isn't drying up. But wanting to get your CD using something other than your boob at 5 months sounds eminently reasonable - DD is 13 weeks today so I am thinking I am exactly half-way to weaning and getting her to drink ebm from something other than me durijg that time would be welcome!