Introducing a bottle to a breast fed baby - when is the best time?

[thejaffacakesareonme]

I'm having DC3 later today by ELCS. I breastfed both DS1 and DS2 but didn't have much success with getting either of them to take the occasional bottle of expressed milk. DS1 would do so after over an hour of screaming. To my knowledge, DS2 never took a bottle. I'd like this baby to take a bottle so that when he or she is 3 or 4 months I can leave him or her occasionally with family members so that DH and I can have a couple of hours together. When is the best time to introduce a bottle? I wonder if I was so careful about avoiding nipple confusion with the older two that I left it too late.

There is no best time really. The advice is to wait till bf is well established. I started at 4 weeks, gave a bottle of ebm 2-3 times a week. But little terror worked out the difference around 4mo and would scream and thrash at the sight of a bottle. I see quite a few bottle refusers on this board that grew to refuse a bottle. So don't kick yourself for not starting early enough.

My DD had her 1st bottle at 9 days old.

(I had leaked and collected loads of milk, she had fed for 4 hours non stop, was clearly still hungry, i was desperate for a bath, I felt like my boobs were empty, so OH gave her 2oz of dripped milk in a bottle.... she downed it, I had a bath, a couple of hours off feeding and peace resumed in our household)

She only had a bottle once or (twice) max a week for the 1st 6 weeks though, and only when she had been sucking for hours and hours and i had had enough.

Agree with TerrorNova -

Babies are all unique and there's no evidence to back up rules about the best time to introduce a bottle.

Some babies take a bottle fine, then start refusing it later ...
Some babies take a bottle fine, then start refusing the breast ...
Some babies refuse a bottle, then start taking it when they're older (mine did from 6 mo) ...
Some babies never take a bottle but will self-feed with a sippy cup when they're older ...

The best thing is to play it by ear and not beat yourself up if it doesn't go according to plan. They grow and change so quickly - what's impossible at 4 months might work fine at 6 or 8 months.