ebf bottle refuser, need help weaning 6month old

[LadyEdward]

Hi all, i wondered if anyone could help me. Ds 6 months is ebf, i am going back to work soon and need to give a bottle while i am at work but baby refuses to feed from one. I have tried many different teats / bottles, breast milk and formula, have been trying for a month and so far the most he has fed is half an ounce from the bottle.
Ds feeds fine from breast and i will continue to ebf as only working 3 mornings a week but really don't know what to do with regards to feeding while i am at work. Any suggestions gratefully received.

DC1 was also a bottle refuser, but would drink BM from a very basic free flow Tommee tippee cup. He never did really take to formula though, so nursery gave him extra dairy foods as he got older to make up for the daytime milk feeds he refused.

He'd also have a game go at a Doidy cup (messy), and I actually got him started on cups with an Avent soft spout feeder with the non-spill valve removed, as it was then so free-flowing that I was basically tipping milk into his mouth a little at a time!

Really feel for you, I remember being so worried about this at the time

DC1 was also a bottle refuser, but would drink BM from a very basic free flow Tommee tippee cup. He never did really take to formula though, so nursery gave him extra dairy foods as he got older to make up for the daytime milk feeds he refused.

He'd also have a game go at a Doidy cup (messy), and I actually got him started on cups with an Avent soft spout feeder with the non-spill valve removed, as it was then so free-flowing that I was basically tipping milk into his mouth a little at a time!

Really feel for you, I remember being so worried about this at the time

Ebf 20week old ds has always been a bottle refuser tried every type I could find in shops, I come across the momma rocking bottles on amazon with amazing reviews about bottle refusers taking them, I bought one last week and ds has never refused it yet the times I've tried....he has refused for daddy though

Sorry but dd was ebf and utterly refused every bottle type I could buy. I'd try a cup of expressed milk before a spoon of food and give up on the bottle idea ... save some heartache maybe.

Thank you for your replies. I have tried a free flow cup but ds just doesn't seem to swallow, he just lets the milk spill out the side of his mouth and down his chin. When i feed him with a spoon, if he's hungry i can't get it down quick enough and he gets hysterical. So worried he's going to be hungry and upset.
what are the rocking bottles diamonds? I have so many types of bottle but i will try anything!

If the milk is flowing back out of his mouth, he might have taken too much in to cope with at once. With DS I had to put the cup to his lips then take it away again, over and over, until he got the hang of things.

He sort of pushes it out with his tongue iykwm? Its hard to explain. He doesn't accept dummys or bottles but he will suck on his snuggle bunny ear so i guess there is hope?!
i have ordered a momma bottle and will try again with a cup tomorrow, I'll report back on how he is getting on and if we have any luck, thank you for all your suggestions

Ds was exactly the same though we did know that he was able to drink from a bottle as he was briefly on bottles for his first week on the NICU. With him it was clearly personal choice that he just preferred breast, but like you I was returning to work and needed to be sure he would be ok. We were recommended the dr browns bottles on here (due to the constant flow if they do start sucking then they don't have to stop to allow the air back in- so supply is more like breast).
I was also advised to keep the milk (in his case it was expressed breast milk) hotter than you would perhaps think- when you express it it does feel very warm.
Even with all this it took one day of pure hell- this is after several aborted tries.
Basically we made a decision that this HAD to work, and stockpiled breast milk for a few days (can be fridge stored for up to 5 days).
We then only offered bottle feeds, and he continually refused them. We poured pints of the stuff down the sink, and he held out for 7 hours before he finally have in and drank from a bottle.
It was truly awful and we were both in bits and nearly have in so many times, but we simply offered a bottle every 50 mins or so, so he was never "starved", but we have not looked back since.
For a few weeks I then breast fed him morning and night, but bottled him throughout the day. However with 4 teeth he turned into a proper biter and after a couple of puncture wounds I have up and began to wean him into formula- starting with 1oz diluted in 7 of breast milk. Slowly increasing it. 2 weeks later he had a cold and was up in the night wanting a feed- I was up to express anyway and so put it straight into a bottle thinking I could avoid having to warm anything. He refused it, and wouldn't take it until we added some formula.
It is tough, but they adapt so quickly. He is now just over 7 months and seems I adore his bottles- reaches out and grabs them, and has no response to being near bare breasts now at all.
I found it a sad time, but i don't doubt that I am happier sending him to nursery on Monday now knowing that he can take a bottle from anyone.
Good luck. With him it certainly was a case of pure will- I would absolutely never have believed that a baby of a few months could be stubborn.
Good luck, and I hope you find an answer.

Thank you for your post boarding. It does ring bells.
Ds latches on immediately when offered even if he's fussed with the bottles.
He sometimes will chew and bite the bottle and just not suck it at all, but latches straight away if offered the breast. He's my second baby and has me totally perplexed!

Update; my sister gave me a cheap teat she had from a bottle for her ds when he was a baby and my ds has drunk 2oz from it, hopefully he'll continue to drink from it and i can relax a little. Thank you for all your help

Yay. Glad to hear. Good luck with it. They can be so tricky sometimes!

If it's only 3 mornings I wouldn't worry too much - DS went to nursery 2 mornings (4 hours) at that age and I just fed him before and after, at nursery he had a toast/fruit snack, lunch and water to drink.

Nuk latex teat works well on bottle refusers, apparently.

I second NUK bottles and teats. She would only take the bare minimum but it was the only one that she would take any from. having the milk quite hot too.

Thanks boarding, fingers crossed eh! have a nuk bottle and both silicon teats and the latex teat. He sucked the latex teat and took half an ounce from that bottle but wouldn't take any more, at least he's taking some milk from the teat my dsis gave me. Unfortunately i do need to give him the bottle as i work 7 til 1:30, with a 30 min travel time added on so think even if i wake ds at 6 he's still going to need to be fed at least twice while I'm not there.
I'll still give the momma bottles a try when they arrive and see if ds will take those as otherwise i don't know where to get more of the one he fed from today!

If you think trying different bottles might help then I can happily send you a parcel of the many different types we tried since there in only 1 type he uses the others are redundant- off the top of my head there is avent, nuk, a small dr browns, and a couple of other makes. But maybe you have already tried them and found his best fit. Anyway, the offer is there if you think it may be useful, just pm me.
Fingers crossed off you that you have already cracked it.

Thank you for your offer boarding, i think we have tried all of those types except the dr browns.
Ds has been a pickle today and clamped his mouth shut at the sight of the bottle, then when i offered the breast he bit me with his beautifully sharp teeth. Ouch!
Hopefully i will have more luck tomorrow.

Possibly not much help, but my ebf bottle refusing, 8mo dd, will drink expressed milk from a shot glass, quite happily! She decided this was ok at about 5 months old. Rarely needs to, as I'm still on mat leave but DP hasn't had any issues getting her 2 drink from it, since.

I think mamas & papas or maybe jojo maman bebe sell actual made for babies, shot glass sized cups. Seeing them gave me the idea to try the shot glass rather than fork out for something else that would be no use.

That's something else to try, i never thought of that! Thank you all for your suggestions. I will persevere!

Bottle refusenik DS2 got the hang of one of those slanty Doidy cups pretty quickly around 4.5 months and then moved on to the Nuk soft spout cup - it's like a sort of cross between a bottle and a sippy cup. He'll now drink water out of pretty much anything but still prefers the Nuk sippy for EBM.

Hope you have some luck LadyEdward, I too have a bottle refuser, though she's only 10 weeks it's so frustrating as I'm meant to be back at work this coming week... No idea What I'm going to do. Watching with interest...

Seconding the nuk latex teats, also heating the milk up v warm and titrating ratios of formula to bm. Other tip we got from a NICU nurse was to (quite firmly) apply pressure to baby's cheeks while bottle feeding, it stimulates the suck reflex in premies, and worked for bottle refusing dd at about 5 months.

Ds took just an ounce today, i used the latex nuk bottle again, but better than yesterdays mouth clenching!
I think if i just slowly offer the bottle a couple of times a day over the next few weeks hopefully he will have got the hang of it.
i really feel for you excited, its so hard knowing your baby needs to eat but also knowing you need to go back to work. I can understand the not knowing what to do feeling, luckily i have a few more weeks til I'm due back at work.
So far I've worked out ds will take either ebm or baby juice from either the nuk latex teat or a very cheap silicon teat which is quite long without shoulders if that helps you at all?
Surgical, i will try the cheek thing tomorrow, how much pressure should i use? Just before his lips pucker or is that too much?

I too have a 6mo DS bottle refuser - tried tommee tippee and dr browns but no go. Tried him on a basic TT sippy cup and he did exactly how you described Lady with the milk going everywhere and not really swallowing. Do I persevere with it? Do they learn how to drink and swallow? Or try another cup? I so want to start cutting down on bf. how is the Nuk bottle going?

Hi holbea, the bottle feeding isn't going well at all, the most ds takes is an ounce, I'm just offering the bottle everytime i feed him. Hoping he'll just decide to take the bottle one day. He's teething at the moment too which isn't helping, he just wants to chew everything!
The rocking bottle is no better, nuk is definitely best so far and we have had no luck with the cup, think ds needs to be bigger for that.