6 month old refusing bottle

[bellygazing]

My daughter was EBF until 23 weeks, when I started weaning, but has been having a bottle of expressed breast milk pretty much every night from her dad since about 4 weeks old. She has never had formula, just breast milk, and we never had any problems with her taking the bottle.

In the last few days, she has suddenly started refusing the bottle. It coincided with us doing CC sleep training - the bottle feed is the one before she goes to sleep, topped up with a breast feed if she is still hungry. It started off with her only taking a couple of ounces, but still BFing, then sh refused to take it all together, just chewing on the eat. Have managed to get her to take a couple of ounces through the cup she gets water from but she really resists and it's clearly a distressing experience for her.

Is this most likely a side-effect of the sleep training, associating bottle with crying, or teething issues because the teat (Tommeee Tippee) is nice to chew on? I have tried offering her the bottle at different times of day but the same thing happens, I've also tried a faster flowing teat.

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated.

It sounds as if she doesn't like the CC and doesn't want to get to the end of the feed.

I did think that, but after five days we've had no crying at all when we put her down and she still refuses the bottle.

What time are you giving her meals and milk feeds? Just wondered if she might still be full from her previous meal. How many ounces of milk is she getting each day?

No personal experience, but I've read that bad reactions and loss of trust from upsetting CC experiences can take weeks to get over.

Will she breastfeed before bed? My ds is definitely feeding less before bed now as he's eating more for dinner.

She has dinner at 5.30pm, then bath at 6.30pm followed by baby massage, feed, bed. She will breastfeed before bed - this is what I end up doing when she refuses the bottle.

In terms of upsetting CC experiences, I understand your point but she is perfectly happy to breastfeed from me, cheery and smiley during the day etc etc - and as I said no longer cries at bedtime - it's just she won't take the bottle. She is generally less interested in breastfeeding since getting established on solids, but my DH and I haven't been able to persuade her to go back to the bottle at all.

I don't mind breastfeeding her at bedtime at all, but I am not always going to be there, particularly when I go back to work - so need to know that if I'm not there she will feed via another method!