My baby won't take a bottle ....help

[sabbby82]

I'm trying to wean my DD(5months) onto a bottle as returning to work FT soon... But she's having none of it! Either with expressed milk or formula. As soon as the bottle is near her she starts crying and turning her head and I can't even get the teat in her mouth! Any advice please!!!!

Have you tried different times of day? We found first thing in morning a good time when ds was learning to take bottles. Or distract her with something else, eg my mum pits ds in front of tv in his little bouncy chair and sneaks the bottle in.

Or, at five months, she might be able to take from a cup?

Puts ds in chair...sorry!

Puts ds in chair...sorry!

My DS never took a bottle, not for want of us trying! We started him on a hard spout tommy tippee about the age of your DD. he took it in the afternoon feed first - maybe cos it was the one where he was more lively and less looking for comfort. I found sitting him on my knee facing tv worked, probably cos it wasn't his usual position. For the bedtime feed I found it helped to do some BF then some cup then BF and slowly decrease time of BF. good luck x

I totally sympathise as DD was the same. I'm convinced seeing a cranial osteopath helped; apparently DD had a poor suck reflex and was using her lower jaw instead of sucking when bf-ing. A few sessions later and she took the bottle.

You can try finding the suck reflex yourself with your finger - it's just behind where her two front top teeth would be (ie roof of her mouth). Perhaps do this when putting teething gel on? My dd's suck was fine once it got going but as a reflex it wasn't great, but the stimulation really seemed to help.

We'd tried so many different types of bottles and positions, different times of day, OH doing it, me doing it and it was soooooo stressful.

I also read an artIcle which explained that bf babies like to root, so try putting the bottle teat on her cheek first so she roots for it (ie like with your nipple when she was tiny) and then put it on her lips so she can draw it in herself.

Good luck, it's so stressful eh?