How do I solve bottle rejection in breastfed baby?

[possiblenewmum]

My DD is 4 months old next week and is BF. From 6 weeks DH and I have been doing 1 expressed feed a day, normally the dream feed, so that I could go to bed early or very occasionally go out. This has never been a problem but for the last two or 3 weeks DD has been rejecting the bottle, it started as just playing around, pushing the teat around her mouth instead of sucking but now she does that and cries and cries until i eventually have to feed her. She rejects every bottle we try now. We want to continue mixing BF with EBF bottles and eventually start introducing formula from 5 months to give me a bit more freedom and also its nice for DH to be able to feed DD. I am also worried as from 6m i need to put her in nursery. I am trying out different bottles / teats (we were using Avent and are currently trying Tommee Tippee closer to nature) but its not working yet. Any advice please?

My ds is younger than your dd, but we have been using Breastflow bottles - they're supposed to be better for swapping between breast and bottle.

Alternatively could you try some kind of cup or beaker?

We have the same problem although our bottle refusal has been intermittent. Using the Medela special needs bottle got dd back on bottles by gettng her to accept the teat in her mouth. We then moved onto Dr Brown's which she did use for a while. However, we are now well and truely back into bottle refusal and as she is 6.5mo I think this time might be permenent...

I had this issue with both mine... although it is many years ago now.

DD finally got onto Avent (but I see you have tried that). My Health visitor came around and fed her, with me out of sight and sound, hiding in another room.

DS was fine with a sippy cup, but again had to be started by the HV with me hiding.

Wow, thenightsky, what a helpful HV. I asked my HV for advice and she looked at me as if I was the first person she had ever heard of with this problem!

HH... as i say... this was many years ago as DD is now 24 and DS is 17, so perhaps Health Visitors were a different breed back then. But she did offer, rather than me asking.

I did lay on tea and cake for her

My ds is 8 months old and has never had a bottle.....

Until today!

He always refused a bottle of ebm until someone suggested the breastflow bottle by first years. It works the same way as a breast so baby still has to curl their tongue round the teat iyswim.

Anyway, we were amazed that he took to it straight away. Well worth a shot.

yep- second breastflow- the top is fatter- like a boob, so it fools'em (babies are simple creatures)

Please don't worry about Nursery, its 2 months away and alot can change before then.

As for not taking the bottles, well if she can have Mummy who can blame her?

At 4 months she could have many thing going on. Its often a time for sleep regression and a growth spurt. She will probably be ok again soon.

Breastflow bottles

Another one for Breastflow bottles. My ds was exactly the same....

I think we tried every variable going to 'persuade' him that this was not going to kill him!

But just used ebm to start with, sometimes starting partway through a feed, so he wasn't starving. Also would try when he was sleepy - in his car seat after a trip was good too. Many people say that you not feeding him is best, ie get dad to do the bottle feeds to start with, but I found that didn't work at all with ds - he was used to me feeding him iyswim. Just stick at it, try not to get obsessed with it, and try a little every 1 or 2 days. You will get there!

Great thanks for all the advice. What are breastflow bottles? are they like the closer to nature ones? We tried tommee tippee but it didn't work. I am going to try a cup over the next few days. My health visitor suggested the cup but wasn't that helpful really.

I dont't think we've hit sleep regression yet - she has only just started sleeping from 9pm till 6.30am. I have wondered if she has started teething, and so the bottle was too sore on her gums, she has screaming sessions that don't seem to be explained by anything else and when i've tried bonjela it has helped a little but not a lot.

We always found Dentinox gel good for teething. As for getting her to take a bottle have a read of this on Kellymom

You can get the breastflow bottles from Mothercare etc. I am in the same boat - my little one is coming up to 5 months. She used to take the bottle up to around 3 months then i got tired of expressing. Want to have a bit of freedom so now desperate for her to take the bottle again occasionally. She just sees it and screams the house down. It doesnt matter what bottles i use, we dont get that far. Any tips would be welcome!!

Make the bottle hotter!! Seriously - I was using breastflow bottles and just slightly heating the milk. DS was no interested at all. One day I tried giving a really warm one - and he downed it!! Remember your breastmilk is not tepid. It's a toasty 38C!!

I second heating up the milk in a breastflow bottle, making sure the nipple is warm too. My dd was refusing the bottle until I heated it up then hey presto......I could have cried!! You can also get the breastflow bottles on Amazon.

I am in the same boat. I had made a point to introduce a bottle along with BF early and had maintained feeding her about every other day. But at 12 weeks, she now screams the house down. And although she eventually takes it from someone else, and even occassionally me, she is really upset and has to stop to wind and the whole screaming cycle starts again. Does it ever get easier?
It doesn't help that Nuk stopped making slow flow teats (arrggg!), so it comes in too fast. I will try the above. Does Breastflow or tommy tippee make latex teats? Why don't they make a point of warning you about bottle rejection in hospital?!