Can we have a 'my baby won't take a bottle' support thread!

[greeneone12]

Mine is 4.5 months and after giving her one in the early days we left it too late and now she won't. I try her every day and now have about 8 different types of bottle. I want to try with a cup but wonder if she will take to that in a months time as I have read that they change so much between months.

Anyway its always nicer to know your not alone....

Can I join? We've thrown in the towel and I'm working FT and still feeding 7-month DS. I'm knackered, I feel really trapped and miserable and it's having the weird side effect of disassociating me from my body - I hate it so much that I just don't want to live in it any more (that's not very well expressed, but maybe someone will know what I mean). DH is knackered because he's doing half the night so that I can function at work, but he can't feed DS if he wakes hungry so he's walking the floor for hours.

We've tried everything we can think of (including not giving any liquids for 24 hours but offering the bottle ) and nothing worked. He'll take milk in a spoon or in an open cup, but he won't have anything to do with a bottle or a sippy cup.I can't go out anywhere until after bedtime so basically don't have a social life at the moment as doing anything after work is a non-starter.

babababa, I'm away from DS those hours. He seems to get enough to eat. He won't starve if you carry on feeding round the edges of work, but it'll be pretty miserable for you.

Sorry to be so gloomy, but I'm feeling pretty down at the moment. I do feel quite annoyed that no-one warned me this could be such a problem when I was starting out with BF: I'm reaching the stage when I'm hoping to be really ill and in hospital so DH and DS will just have to sort it out between them.

Sorry, babababa, just realised you have a DD not a DS! Apologies.

lol at thesecondcoming!

Petsville sorry you are so down. Fwiw, the feeding will cut down a bit as DS gets older. I had to go back to work when DD was 9mths, she flat out refused a bottle till the day I went back. But over months 9-11-ish she just stopped taking it and made do with solids, I fed her morning and night (and overnight).

Similarly, having never been able to go out for the evening, I got forced into it when she was about 10mths as I had to work till 10pm one night - she took a bottle from DH at bedtime, I think because I literally wasn't in the building!

Caz, I'm not sure that makes it better really - it's the bedtime feed I'm desperate to get rid of! I want to cry at the thought that I'll still be doing it when DS is 11 months.

TheSecondComing, yes, I want to scream and throw things (though I hadn't thought of my tits as one of the things I might throw...) when people try to pass BFing off as a bonding experience!

Won't tell you when Dd stopped feeding at night then...! BUT that was only because I ended up doing nothing to discourage it. Tried briefly and unsuccessfully to give up the night feeds, in the end just decided to go with the flow, coslept with Dd and in the end barely even woke up when she fed, made a huge difference, was almost like being back to unbroken sleep. However I appreciate this is prob not the route you want to go down- have you been on kellymom website? They have brilliant info and articles on all aspects of infant feeding. Could you try going out over bedtime for a couple of nights and let your Dh try with a bottle ? Obv you could just come back if all going pear shaped.

I can't feed lying down, unfortunately, so night feeds mean getting up for me: I'd be a complete wreck if DS fed as often as he wants to at night. I've looked at Kellymom but they don't seem very helpful on how to stop feeding.

We have tried me going out over bedtime while DH tries the bottle, but not since I went back to work - sleep's too precious for us to risk messing up bedtime! I've got a couple of weeks off in May and we'll have a really good go at it then. If all else fails, once DS gets to 9 months and can reliably drink from a cup I'll go away for a week, we'll pay a night nanny so DH doesn't fall to pieces from exhaustion and we'll crack it that way. But I feel really sad that the only role I have in DS's life is milk supply, and that if I'm not going to feed him it's actually better that I'm not here.

I'm weaning my DS and he won't drink formula from a bottle. I heard Aptamil's the closest to breastmilk (as has everyone I think!) and a friend of my mum said that in her old LLL book it says to try a spoonful of sugar into the formula to make it taste better. I tried this and it did taste better (I perish the thought of the dental hygiene issues here though!)

We use a sippy cup that the baby has to suck but he still takes very little of the sweetened formula. :(

I read somewhere that for bf babies, you could try poking extra holes in the botte teat as the milk comes from different ducts so it mimics the boob a bit better or make the hole in the teat a bit bigger. I think I'll give these suggestions a try as well or since he's approaching 10 months, I might just sod it and give him cow's milk!

My main worry is that his fluid intake's not so great- even water or juice from a free-flowing cup tends to be rejected by the little monkey!

TSC - you know you can use cows milk in food from 6 months don't you? No need to use formula.