HV suggested I starve DS to get him to take Bottle/Cup/Formula

[cuppateaanyone]

Help, the thought of starving him feels very wrong.
Have been EBF DS (17wks) who is starting nursery in 2 weeks and I go back to work in 4 weeks he will not accept a bottle or formula AT ALL, have been trying for 4 weeks now.
Have tried all bottles, temps, teats, brands, hungry /not hungry,in his sleep, other people the lot. It seems to be the taste, he pulls a face, spits it out then clamps his lips shut.

There is no way I'll ever be able to express enough (found this very hard and don't produce much)

HV suggested cold turkey and basically starve him out? (HV helpfully said his weight was fine so go ahead)
If I do this my mum and sister have suggested I leave the house until they have managed to feed him.

Do I express a bit and then slowly dilute this with formula?

Advice, experience welcome, I'm desperate.

OP, you said you were in the early staged of weaning; are you using breast milk or formula to mix up the baby rice?

I know a lot of people who have spent months stressing over getting baby to take a bottle to no avail, then once they go to nursery with different people, no mummy and other babies all taking the bottle quite happily it is a lot easier. So, don't worry too much, DS may well be fine once he starts.

Don't know if it may be worth trying a different pump to express more so that you can then slowly change from BM t formula? I can't get anything out with a hand pump but my medela swing is fab so might be worth a try...

Jazzie, using breastmilk after he refused formula (lips clamped shut pulled a face). He is pretty much eating anything I put in front of him (fruit purees)and baby rice.
The plan is breastmilk for now then introduce formula by stealth by mixing 90/10, 80/20 then hoping nursery will help me with the last bit, they are expecting this and think i'm stressing overly but if there are changes to sleep patterns etc as a result I want to sort them now rather than when I'm back at work (he starts 2 weeks before I go back).

Starving them is counter-productive.
They don't KNOW that a bottle / cup will satisfy their hunger, so if hungry they will just be very distressed to be offered something when it isn't the thing they know they need.

Try when they are not especially hungry, and may experiment or play with the teat and then discover that that lovely milk comes out.

It isn't stubborness or any kind of attitude that stops them taking a bottle, just inability to realise that that is what will satisfy their need.

CaroBeaner, I'm sure you're right, but me losing my job would be pretty counter-productive in the long run for DS as well: I need to be able to go back to work and focus on work, and I'm back next week. I know the refusal isn't stubbornness or awkwardness, but we've done absolutely everything (me offering the bottle, DH offering the bottle, offering when he's hungry, offering when he's not hungry, making sure I'm out of the house altogether for hours, six different kinds of bottle, you name it) and I am at my wits' end. He plays with the teat, he knows milk comes out of it, he just doesn't want that milk. EBM or formula, it makes no difference. He'll take water from a cup, quite enthusiastically, but not milk. And DH will be at home with him, so we can't hope that nursery / childminder will solve the problem.

I hope the OP finds it easier than we have! Here's hoping the nursery can crack it.

Oh, I sympathise. My DS1 wouldn't drink from a bottle of any kind, or take ff. He would take stuff from a spoon so I sent baby rice and frozen EBM in bags for the nursery to give him baby rice mixed with EBM from a spoon. This was at 4m.

I eventually got my refuser to take a bottle.....

I fed her a little then delatched her and literally shoved the bottle in. Took a couple of attempts but it worked when everything else had failed.

She then decided that bottles were okay and far easier to guzzle down 10oz from one of them than me - she was 16 weeks at the time!

My MW recommended the same approach with DC1 who refused bottles.

We were at the same stage 17 weeks but I was trying to get her to take EBM in a bottle. The MW was very reassuring and I trusted her (which helped) so tried (after days of trying every teat/bottle on the market).

DD went 13hrs without a feed. She wasn't obviously distressed, although my parents who were trying to get her to take the bottle (MW recommended that I wasn't present) did struggle towards the end. In fact they called me and said they couldn't do it anymore and 15 mins later she gulped dow 8oz.

Oh its so hard. I was in the same situtation with dd refusing bottle and all the HV could say was "just persevere". 18 long and unproductive weeks of persevering later (involving a day of cold turkey which DID NOT work), I gave up and continued with breastfeeding. At 24 weeks I started giving water in a tommee tippee cup (which I made free flow by piercing a wee hole in the top) and by 7 months she would take that fine.

She still wont take any milk from a cup tho' (she's just turned 1). From 9 months I dropped the afternoon feed to try to get her to take a cup of formula to no avail. Since then she gets breastfeeds morning and night before bed. I think that things are starting to dry up now cos she is less and less focused. I am a wee bit sad about stopping but pleased I have done it this long.

Just to say it can be done on morning and nite feeds if you wish to continue? Not saying you should (you must do whats right for you two)just that it is possible. HTH

So having struggled to express 70 mls (took 40 mins, from both sides whilst trying to occupy him) we've had a 45 min screamfest to try and take it - what would I rather, cold turkey or every feed becomming a battle, perhaps for a longer period of time ?
Am finding the expressing is really winding me up, I've never liked it, can't find the time to do it and never seem to produce that much,
CarGirl - have tried this a few times to no avail.
Emotionally this has really stirred me up, the lack of control and powerlessness that goes with being a mother (well to me anyway) , resenting my DH for not having to do this and now fustrationm at the expressing and above all the fear of just not knowing how I will crack this.....

I sympathise .

If you really need to crack this (and your particular circs will dictate this) then you need to make this your DH's responsibility (that might also help with the resentment....)

You cannot be the one trying to feed the baby from a bottle he doesn't want to take. So you need to leave the house for an afternoon/evening/day and leave DH with the baby. If you are determined to do this you need a certain amount of commitment then DH needs to accept it is going to be bloody hard. He is going to have to cope with a baby that will get increasingly fractious and he will need to be patient and calm and not crack.

It will be hard and not particularly pleasant. But sometimes needs must. Maybe speak to a MW/GP to get some extra reassurance about how long to keep trying. My MW was adament that my DD would crack rather than starve but we were pushed to our limit. I couldn't have gone any longer. It is not ideal but sometimes needs must.

The expressing will get sooooo much easier once you are i) not stressed and ii) doing it regularly.

I don't resent DH, but it's adding to the stress knowing that he really wants to help, he's getting very worried about me (am ten pounds lighter than I should be, partly because I'm so tired I can't summon up the energy to eat much, and going mad with sleep deprivation) and he just can't lighten the load.

Expressing gets easier, but it's always time-consuming and it's really depressing having to throw the stuff down the sink. We must have wasted litres of my milk over the last three months (we gave up three weeks ago and started trying with formula instead, because I need to give up BFing anyway).

cuppatea, I so sympathise: I feel I'm being punished for having tried to do the right thing. If I'd just FFed from the beginning, or at least mixed fed, we wouldn't be in this mess. It's not as though I've ever enjoyed BFing: it hurt for the first couple of weeks, it was a chore for the next four months and now it feels like a ball and chain, especially since after ten days' respite we're back into the sleep regression and I'm up every two hours.

We had to postpone our experiment with only offering the bottle at night: DS wasn't well (stomachache, as far as we could tell) and we thought giving him formula might make things worse. So we'll try tonight. Wish us luck. If nothing else, I get a break: I'll be sleeping in the spare room, which is out of earshot of DS.

This is another reason why people don't breastfeed. They NEED their babies to take a bottle and everyone knows/has heard of someone who couldn't return to work because the baby wouldn't take to a bottle.

Als, are you serving the formula quite hot? Breadfed babies are used to milk at a higher temp[eerature than you would think,

Petsville - wishing you much good luck, DH is great but working FT means during the week it's just me and DS, think cold turkey with my mum and sister is looming, I have taken a lovely happy baby and made him miserable trying to feed him today, a short, sharp push to crack this seems better than days of making him unhappy. With hindsight I too would have mixed fed, this is not good for me or DS.
PS we are playing white noise fairly loud all through the night and it seems to help with his waking.
Coldtits - I agree, yup tried all temps.

I will do this......somehow!

Best of luck, cuppatea. DS didn't take a bottle last night, but I actually can't believe how much better I feel after 6 hours' uninterrupted sleep. Same thing tonight, and if he won't take a bottle we'll move into the daytime. Thanks for the warning NancyDrew, we'll bear in mind that it could literally take all day.

Petsville I remember you from another thread - so sorry your maternity nurse fell through adn your back in regression hell.

I am so relieved to see other people voicing how i feel. I wish i had never breastfed a lot of the time. I feel horribly trapped by it and am desperately worried about what we are all going to have to go through to get DS to take a bottle before i return to work.

I could conceivably give the night feeds once i return, but not the morning feed. I also cannot contemplate feeding all night, it is bad enough at the moment and i don't have to earn a living in the daytime. I am a snappy nightmare with my poor DD as it is.

I will be watching to see what happens. Am considering just concentrating on one feed a day for now... just don't know which one to do - bedtime was just too stressful because at 18 weeks he still seems to be cluster feeding :(

sorry for typos and spelling

My advice - perseverance.

With DS1 I started trying to give him a bottle at 6 months. The first weeks he screamed the house down. I kept at it - the same time every day I would try giving him a bottle and he refused and refused. It took well over a month. Then one day, he just took it and we never looked back.

I have heard this happen to others, too. You feel like you are getting nowhere fast, but in actual fact progress is being made, you just can't see it. It's not only bottle-taking where this happens - you often get babies who crawl or walk or talk overnight - going from zero to hero in a day. Sometimes it just clicks.

I wouldn't be able to starve - that doesn't feel right to me, but no judgment, as one never knows exactly what another Mum and baby go through, and what you sometimes need to do for the greater good (read: short-term pain; long-term gain). :)

Petsville -Proper sleep makes me feel like a new woman, so pleased you got some.
Yesterday - fed using spoon with BM that I couldn't bear to throw away and rice - quite thick then BF as usual last thing.

First feed today tried using breast flow bottle with fresh expressed milk - epic fail, lots of tears so went to normal BF.
Second feed normal BF.
3rd feed put breastmilk and a bit of formula and baby rice in a tommie tippee cup which he has accepted into his mouth on sunday but nothing more, consistancy was like single cream and whilst standing over him in his bouncy chair tried to totally distract him, needed him to look up at me(think I blew over 50 raspberries and sung god knows what in a silly voice) ANYWAY he definatley showed signs of trying to take the cup, he got fustrated a bit but I saw maybe 3 consecutive sucks before he pulled off, feel like we've made a step in the right direction.

Oh, KSal, sorry you're having a rotten time too . DS stopped cluster feeding at 13 weeks and the relief was enormous: 18 weeks is pretty grim. We were trying with the first morning feed (for months - perseverance didn't work for us), because it made sense for DH to offer a bottle while I got a bit more sleep. Would that work for you?

Fingers crossed for you, cuppatea - that sounds hopeful. The maternity nurse has now rearranged for tomorrow, so I'm feeling slightly more optimistic that we will crack this before I go back to work. If we can't, I suppose I just have to go back and hope that my absence forces DS to take the bottle.

HV/Doctor/my mum/SIL have all said that nursery voodoo (my absence, new person) means that he will eventually feed and won't starve himself but TBH I want to crack this and don't relish the sleep craziness that would accompany it.

Interestingly he seems most up for accepting the cup at his lunchtime feed as opposed to first thing, I also now know that it's the method of delivery rather than the taste that seems to be the problem.

Petsville - Is your DS going to a childminder or nursery, I've spoken to our nursery quite a bit and I can tell they think i'm over reacting plus with the fact that he's eating purees they really don't seeme concerned.

Really think we will miss bottles altogether and stick with just offering the tommee tippee cup - never would have imagined that.

That's interesting: we can get DS to take water in a cup, but if we put milk in the cup he instantly stops co-operating. I have a nasty feeling it is the taste that's the problem in his case.

cuppatea, no, we're not using a childminder or nursery: DH is going to be at home (well, he already is at home, but he's going to be home alone!). But I'm hoping that this maternity nurse (who sounds very switched on and competent on the phone) will have the same effect. The question is whether she can achieve success in one day.

Im another one in the same boat. Have got a pump today and thought I would offer ebm but in a dither about when to pump. Scared if I pump there will be no milk for next feed so dont know when to do it. Anyone any advice on this?

I found the best time to pump was first thing in the morning, not because I ran out of milk otherwise, but because I couldn't extract enough once we'd got into the day and DS had had a couple of feeds. Don't worry about having enough milk for the next feed - you're making it constantly and I think it's incredibly rare not to have enough.