6-week old BF baby refusing bottle. Help please!

[JeanBillie]

My six week-old DD2 is exclusively bf but refusing to take expressed milk in a bottle. We started trying to introduce it at three weeks, after bf was established. After initial struggles with tongue tie, she latches really well now it's been snipped. With one exception, the five or six times we've tried a bottle she screams the house down. The one time she accepted it she took 3oz, but since then it's screams and refusal to take teat in mouth. We've tried everything - Avent and medela teats, different times of day, after half a feed, after a sleep, when sleepy, with DH, with me. Any ideas? DD1 took her bottle first time at four weeks, without a hitch. I fully intend to bf for a year, but am desperate for the odd break, and my DH wants to be able to feed her when needed. What worked for you? Thanks in advance.

Have you tried cup feeding instead of a bottle? If you google kellymom alternative feeding methods you should get some more info

My DS was the same, and like you it came as a shock as DD was a dream and switched from breast to bottle and back without a care! It took 7 long weeks of me trying every single day, sometimes twice a day. I tried a few different bottles, expressed, formula, different times if day etc but eventually I went against all advice and didn't feed him even he woke at 7am and waited till he was screaming the place down at about 8.30am and offered him a bottle then and he drank the lot! He was then fine after that. Breastflow bottle was the first he took but TT closer to nature ever since that first one.
So basically perseverance and stubbornness!!

Having just been through 2.5 months of this, thought I'd share my experiences! We have tried almost every teat, teat material and bottle on the market and my 4 month old has finally settled on MAM anti colic bottles. She won't take it from anyone else yet, but that's the next step. We have had to stick to one type of bottle ( we alternated between the Mam, avent natural and playtex nurser) but HV told us to stick with it and stop wasting breastmilk, just try with formula. We practiced twice a day with a few oz of formula and finally she will take a bottle now, we are on our fifth night of a bottle at bedtime! So don't give up, persevere but be consistent as that's where I messed up.

So your HV was worried about you wasting BM but not formula. Interesting...

Thanks so much everyone . Really good to hear your tales of resistance, persistence and success! I have some good ideas and will battle on.

NUK bottles with latex teats seem to get recommended on here quite a bit as the texture is a bit more boob-like.

If you can hang on a bit and it's not massively urgent that someone gives a bottle feed in the next month or two, I found DS2 (who refused any and all bottles) drank really well from a Doidy cup from about 4.5 months. He's 12 months now and would now, I suspect, drink milk out of an old sock.

The NUK bottle and latex teat combo did the trick for us.

Another success with nuk bottles and latex teat. My eldest liked the Mam anti colic bottle, it took three weeks of repeated offering and perhaps letting them be hungrier than I liked to convince them to try it though.