18 week old bottle refuser

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That's it in a nutshell!

Ds2 is 18 weeks old & has been ebf since birth. We left it until around 9 weeks ish to try him with a bottle. To cut a long story short Ds1 was combined fed for 6 months due to needing formula top ups in hospital at birth, we couldn't wean him off them & slowly but surely more & more ff crept in as it was easier to get milk from the bottle than the boob so didn't want to risk the same with ds2 & make sure bf was well established.

So far we have tried medela calma teats, vital baby nurture & a supermarkets own fast flow teat. With the medela he screamed add soon as it went in his mouth but with the other 2 he had pushed them around his mouth for a bit before eventually starting to cry. I have tried giving the bottle & so has dh - I've had more success than dh.

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to get him to take ebm from something?

Sorry, no. Mine was the same, he took a bottle at 3 weeks but gave up about ten weeks. We tried everything but nothing worked, just got us all worked up. I wouldn't bother next time tbh.

In the end we started him on a free flow sippy cup at about 4 months in addition to bf. Around 8 months he was efficient enough with this to switch some feeds from bf to cup. But he didn't really drink much milk from then until he went onto cows milk at 11months (early, but since he was hardly drinking the formula I didn't see the point). Then he started drinking about a pint a day from the sippy cups....

S2 uses a sippy cup now at 6 months. It was just upsetting watching him refuse the bottle over and over and DH hated it. Now they're both happier.

Thanks for the responses. We don't want it to become a big issue or a battle. Tbh we haven't tried being persistent with it as when he's got upset we've just left it & then not tried again for a good few days & haven't tried now for a couple of weeks. We've got a sippy cup for him so will maybe try give a bottle 1 last go then try that.
Pascha when did you introduce the sippy cup & will lo take a full feed from it?

About two weeks ago. He takes about 100ml which is as much as he's ever wanted at a time. We tried several and a bog-standard free-flow cup with only one hole in the spout seemed to work best for him. He is used to a very fast let-down, this cup must be a near match for it I think.

My dd refused a bottle - we used a sippy cup early. In the long run it was brillian and she move on well and quickly to ordinary cups. It is a pain now I know and the get the hang of cups quickly and actually I found it easier than bottles.

123 when did you introduce the cup & did she pick it up quickly?
Ds is also used to a fast letdown so I think feeflow will be the way to go for us.
I don't mind what he takes his milk from it would just be nice to know that he will tske his milk from something other than me just in case.

We started at about 4 months. We did some experimentation to find the right one. She did pick it up and missed her mouth a lot but got the hang of it fairly quickly. I remember being really frustrated and we got through it.
Equally DS took a bottle and I thought yeah! (after dd trauma) and it took me ages to get him of it - so I just had the pain at a different end.

Cup from around 4.5 months here for DS2 - he had no interest in bottles but "got" the cup straight away. Started with Doidy cup (which he'll still drink from at 8 months) but he's happy with any free flow sippy as well.

Tbh if we can bypass bottles altogether then great - one less thing to have to wean later. Probably not worth bothering with a bottle at all now?
For those that used a cup for ebm did you sterilise it?