Why does a baby suddenly refuse the bottle?

[shaps]

My mostly bf 5 month ds has usually taken the bottle for his 11pm feed when we give him fm or expressed bm. But for the past couple of days he has been refusing. This is all the more annoying as I am planning on starting to cut back breast feeding next week. Why would he suddenly refuse the bottle? And how can we get him back onto it? Last night was just horrendous - my husband tried to get a couple of oz down him at 11, he refused and then woke me up every couple of hours for ravenous bf sessions. I need my sleep! Any advice on this would be very much appreciated.

Teeth.

i checked his gums and i couldn't feel anything. How do you know if that is what it is? He is dribbling a lot but has been doing that for over a month.

teething doesn't necessarily mean a tooth is coming through...they short of wriggle about in the gum while they wait to come out, and that hurts too!

growth spurt?

mine is two weeks off 6 calendar months, and she's wanting to wean. is yours pretty close to 6 months?

make him a breast milk 'slushy' - freeze some EBM till it's slushy - feed it to him w/a spoon and see how heh likes it.

mine liked it so much, she expects it 3x/day or she gets quite fussy at bottle or breast.

Also ears - an ear infection can make sucking painful.

DS definitely went off the bottle when he was teething (he was breast and bottle fed at that point). I ended up spoooning the milk into him.

shaps, this happens, and it gives the lie to all those people who say babies 'must' have a bottle by x weeks or they will never take one. I take calls from mothers fairly frequently describing exactly your situation. You cannot predict which babies will do it, either.

I don't think it's likely to be anything to do with teeth or ears, personally, as more often it seems to be purely behavioural....the baby has learnt which method of milk-feeding he prefers, that's all, and decides to express this feeling by refusing the bottle.

If you want him to go back to accepting a bottle, I would suggest simply not offering it for a couple of days or more so he forgets how much he dislikes it. Once you have a fight on your hands, you cannot win it. He has to forget the fight.

If offering it again in a few days doesn't work, then try a cup.
Good luck!

expatinscotland - he's actually only just coming up to 5 months - rather than 6 months. I like the slushy idea though.

tallmummy - how do you know if a baby has an ear infection?

thanks tiktok for your advice. Will fly the white flag of surrender for a couple of days. and tbh, I could really do with a rest from the battle and tears as we try and get him to return to the bottle again.

Shaps - noticed ds had ear infection as had high temp and kept putting his fingers in his ear, also his ear was a bit smelly. We went through a tough patch a few months ago. He has a muscle tone problem and was having difficulties bf so switched to bottles. Fine at first but he had a cold and we had several weeks when he really fought the bottle. Quite stressful but we persevered. He's now fine. He's older than your ds - 11 months now.