Bottle refuser. Please, please help!

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DS2 is 21 weeks and EBF. I returned to work full time last week and DH is taking the rest of my ML.
The baby refuses to take a bottle. I have supplies of BM in the freezer and am expressing twice a day too. We've tried various bottles and cups but he is spending a good portion of every day sobbing and very distressed then making up for his lack of daytime drinking by feeding all evening and several times a night.
I am barely coping with the lack of sleep and the guilt/ worry about his daytime distress. Does anyone have any words of wisdom or tricks up their sleeves to get him to feed other than direct from me? Please note "This too shall pass" really isn't going to help just now, though of course I know he can start weaning in a few weeks.

have you tried different bottles / teats? Dr Browns are v v good w breastfes babies.
Have you tried fresh breastmilk as well as defrosted? apparently freezing it can affect the taste.

Can you try giving bottles sometimes not just the baby's dad? For us it's still early days with bottles but she often takes them easier from me, then we swap over, getting her used to him.
And maybe setting up some feeding cues eh a particular chair / prefeed routine? hth

Some babies will take formula from a bottle as it tastes different to bm. Possibly worth a try if that's something you'd be comfortable with.

There are lots of different bottles you could try. Mam and Nuk are supposed to be good for bottle refusers. DD started refusing at 7 weeks and since then has only managed to get anything out of a medela Calma, although not enough for a full feed.

I would persevere with a cup. Trying to give DD a bottle was an exercise in frustration; although she can't yet use the cup completely accurately you can see how close she is, and the fact that she is making progress makes it a game for her. be prepared for a lot of wasted milk as it all goes down the front of her babygro! Good luck.

Nuk bottles, the ones with the latex teat, are working for my bottle refusing 20 wk old DD. You have probably tried all the tricks (!) but I found feeding here in a completely different position to bfding helped to differentiate - so facing basically outwards, a little antisocial but I am hoping once she is more established on a bottle I wont need to do that! Good luck - I know how frustrating it is!

Try a teaspoon?

Nuby cup with soft teat is all my 11 mo will drink out of, wont tuch bm but he has had a bit of formula out of it in the past

I feel for you, leaving them is hard enough, even when they're not happy. I would choose one cup/bottle and just carry on trying with that one so as not to confuse the issue. I would go for a tippee cup tbh, rather than faff with bottles. It worked when I went back to work with dd1, but she was a bit older. 21 weeks is five months more or less? I would also be tempted to start with food now. My HV reckons they're reviewing the wait till 6 month guideline anyway. Is he showing any signs of being ready etc?

Is your DH meeting you at lunch time out of the question? I guess this will depend on your commute? I know someone who had to do this! It wouldn't be for long till things settle down.

We had the same problem. We ended up using a sippy cup (one of the free-flowing ones you don't need to actually suck to get anything out). Bit messy but at least DS drank! Have never managed to get him to use a bottle/teat. DS was 5 months when we started that.

In case you're interested, I went back to work FT when DS was 5.5 months. We BF morning and evening, and he was on formula/weaning during the day. Successfully managed to BF until he was 2.1 years, by which time we were just BF once a day before bed.

Oh and although DS was drinking fine in the day he definitely upped his evening BF when I went back to work. Possibly taste? Possibly comfort to know I was there. He settled down after a while once he'd gotten used to me being away during the day.

I had a bottle refuser, ebf, tried loads of diff bottles. The one that finally worked was the breastflow bottles - they have a double teat so baby has to compress and suck in order to get the milk rather than just sucking, which apparently is much more like the action of breast feeding. They worked for me and I rave about them to anyone whose struggling with bottles! They do leak a little after they've been used for a while but frankly that's a small price to pay, I just wrapped a muslin cloth around the bottle to catch the drips and after a couple of months my ds was used to taking a bottle enough that I managed to switch him over to normal tommee tippee ones. Good luck, I know how frustrating it can be!

I'm here to say it is possible to get him to take a bottle - I return to work in 2 weeks and we did bottle battle with ds3 (6 months old) last week. I expressed BM for him. It took 20 hours for him to accept 2 oz from a bottle (we knew he could /as he had bottles of ebm until 4.5 months when he started refusing them) and he took another 2 5 oz bottles overnight, the next day we were back to square one again, and again on day 3. Day 4 he started accepting bottle feeds from me with protests, day 5 fewer protests, day 6 no protests and draining the bottle. I've now reintroduced morning and evening and night bfs and its bottles during the day - Hes not desperately keen on the bottles but will take when hungry enough and takes them from me, dh or our nanny. With his bog brothers it was just 48 hours of bottles only and no boob to get them to understand a bottle was an ok substitute so it took me by surprise that ds3 was so stubborn.

BTW we use Avent natural bottles - he rejected mam and nuk. He likes their milk warmer than Luke warm on your wrist and a no 3 teat (so fast flow) - most bf babies like 1 or 2 teats.

Thanks all. Will keep persevering but there is a limit to how many more bottles the budget will stand! Have tried TT, Avent and Nuk, as well as sippy and doidy cups. I know he is prob getting enough fluid as he's feeding so much at night but I just wish he'd have more in the day!
Several people have told me their chn would accept formula but not EBM. I was so determined he'd be EBF til 6 mths but
I'm thinking I may have to admit defeat on that. As others have said I can still BF morning and evening.

Mine won't have ebm but has reluctantly started to take a couple of ounces of formula - it has to be nice and warm though and must be in a facing outwards feeding position.

I understand. I hated giving formula when previously had been EBF. But needs must and as I say I BF until 2.1 years which made mefeel better (and by which time I was fed up! ). Good luck!