dd will not take bottle

[chocohead]

My DD is 20 weeks old and exclusively breast fed she had a few bottles of EBM at around 10 weeks and took them ok. Have been trying to introduce formula for the past 7 days, on the 1st 2 days she took 2oz since then she has just refused all together. She BF every 3 hours in the day and every 4-5 at night. I would like to mix feeds daily to have the flexability to go out. Also i have not started to wean her yet.

Any tips on the best way to go about getting her to take the bottle?? i end up a wreck after an hour of trying and breast feeding her, help!!

Chocohead - we had this same problem with DD - now 3. DH had no problems getting her to take bottle while I had no joy at all - all to do with me smelling of milk etc etc. Can you get someone else to try with you out of the way IYSWIM?
Good Luck

Thanks for the advice will get DH to try at the weekend, fingers crossed

chocohead,

dd was stubborn as anything!! she was bf for 3mths then gradually introduced bottles during the day. she would flat out refuse but then when i gave in she would stuff her face...

in the end i got tough and witheld bf... also changed her bottles/teats to the nuk ones as i think she liked them better as they are softer than the avent ones i had been using

Just a thought - I had the same thing. LO took bottle, then I got lazy and didn't do it for a few weeks and he refused. Realised it was because he was frustrated with the flow (newborn, size 1 teat) so I tried a size 2 (or 3, can't remember) and it worked a treat. Might not be this but worth a try.

Personally I would wean her. Formula on its own may make no difference whatsoever. I sympathise though re not taking the bottle. Had the same problem with ds and NUK knobbly teats worked after a week with lots of different people trying and me crying a lot. dd won't take the bottle either but I'm ignoring the problem and carrying on with bf, been weaning her from 18 weeks (she's coming up for 20 weeks) and it is helping with night feeds. She seems (crosses fingers and touches wood) to have cut down to one at night now. But you may not be interested in that option yet. It is hard getting bf babies to take a bottle this late on. It takes perserverance and strong will but if you really want to, you can get her to do it. Have seem others recommend the Mam Ultivent teat as well.

I want to give up BF now, but dd will not take bottle. Can i just stop BF and eventually DD will take to the bottle? I just feel like she will never BF and bottle feed happily and think it is going to have to be 1 or the other.

Feel really guilty as i know breast is best but feel like i can't continue with it anymore. I just want dd to be happy but feel i won't be as long as i keep BF. This is really getting me down never thought it would be this hard. Anyone else taken LO of BF and bottle fed successfully at 20 weeks ??