My 8 week old wont take a bottle - going back to work. Help!

[Katie28]

Hi everyone! My DS is 8 weeks old. I have two older children (4 and 2) who were both exclusively breast fed until 6 months and who I carried on breastfeeding into their first year. I never needed them to bottle feed as I took my full maternity leave both times. This time is different as I run my own business and can't take much time off. I'm going back to work in less than four weeks.

My problem is that I can't get DS to take a bottle. I've tried tommee tippee, nuk and Medela bottles and none have worked. I can initially get each one into his mouth (apart from the Medela one which he wouldn't even let into his mouth) but then he gags immediately. If I push it too much he projectile vomits. I've tried the gentle approach letting the milk run into his mouth a bit and I've tried pushing the teat into his mouth. Nothing works. I've been trying each day for about four weeks and I'm getting really concerned he won't take the bottle before I go back to work. I'm only going back one day a week but I can't go if no one else can feed him. I'm feeling so stressed out about it now and I don't know what to try next. I can't imagine any other type of bottle will help as the three I have are all very different. I've also tried both expressed breast milk and formula, both warm and cold. Nothing seems to make any difference.

If anyone has any experience getting a breast fed baby onto a bottle I'd be so grateful for your help :-)

We eventually found that ds would take the breastflow bottles, but our amazing cm had to spend a few weeks spooning milk in till he really got the idea.

He was a bit older at 5.5 months. He reverse cycled massively. He got there eventually and didn't starve or dehydrate. I had to go back ft.

Persist, but don't stress. 4 weeks is a long time for babies, and he'll survive one day a week of spoon feeding mill if necessary.

Hi - this sounds obvious but have you tried getting someone else to give the bottle? I've always got DH to give my BF babies their bottles. I think babies aren't keen on the bottle when they can see and smell the real deal so near! Apologies if you've already done that.

Hi tinierclanger yes sorry I should have said in my post DH has tried too :-(

Is breastflow a make of bottle? I will try that. I also forgot to mention part of my stress is that my lovely sister will be looking after DS when I go back to work. She will also have my 2 year old, her 2 year old and her currently 3 week old baby. I don't really want her to have the extra work of tipping milk into his mouth, particularly if he is stressy about it. I know we may just have to do that if he still won't take the bottle. Thank you both for your replies :-)

Breastflow worked for my DS too, you can buy just one from amazon to try. I have to say though as a nanny and a mother, are you sure about your sister providing childcare for so many small children?! It really sounds too much and unsustainable, have you thought of using a childminder or asking someone else to support your sister initially?

You'll get lots of good advice about different types of bottles, so I just wanted to chime in to ask if you've checked your son for tongue or lip tie? (Lots of advice online).

My DD never took a bottle (still bf at 18months) but we recently discovered that she had a grade IV lip tie which could well have caused problems with bottle feeding. Luckily, we had no issue bfing. Just wanted to point this out in case there was a physical cause.