how to get a breastfed baby on to bottle

[reyhansmummy]

my son is now 7 months and exclusively breastfed, however i can never leave him or get a break as my husband works 24.7 and my baby feeds every hour or two, and will not take a bottle even if i pump milk, or a zippy cup. i can never go out without baby or get any 'me time' if i leave baby with pumped milk he will refuse to drink it and get angry with the bottle. he wakes every 2 hours at night to feed and i never get any sleep
how do i get my baby to take a bottle so i can give bottle in day & co sleep bf at night?

Have you tried nuk bottles with the latex teats? My bottle refusing ds will drink from a nuk bottle. He'll only have about 2oz but I just keep getting dh to give him one every few days and we're making progress. At least now I can pop out on my own for a few hours.

Is he eating solids too?
I am absolutely not criticising you, but every 2 hours thru the night at 7 months seems a bit excessive - is he using you as a comfort or actually feeding?
You're an amazing woman!! I went a bit bonkers at 3 months of ebf due to the inability to go out on my own etc.

yes solids too, and bf as comfort .. i am going bonkers too!! but nothing i can do :( i have tried nuk latex bottle and no luck x

From bitter experience, it sounds like he's made his position clear! Found it better to focus efforts on getting them comfortable with a sippy cup (nothing fancy, cheapest TT variety) and/or opened topped cup instead - much less stressful in the end. He will get it very quickly. He may, of course, choose not to drink in your absence (bitter experience again ), but sanity breaks are important and he won't come to any harm.
Good on you for getting so far!

my 2 EBF babies would not take expressed milk in a bottle. They both went to CM at this age so I expressed milk and they took it reluctantly from sippy cup (as mentioned upthread forget all the fancy ones - Tommee tip pie basic cheapie is the best) but usually it went to waste.

Can you offer water via zippy cup and see if he will take that?

at 7months I would forget about the bottle completely - focus on getting him on the cup.

Try straws. I was amazed when DD took to that after trying every bottle / sippy cup there is! I found the munchkin ones with a floppy top good, although they can be hard to suck. I asked for recommendations on my other thread, although I rather fancy the momma flip top straw cup as it has handles.

And if it were me (again...) I'd be starting night weaning. We waited until 14m and should have started refusing milk too close together much earlier. I'm now on DC2 and trying to reduce the feeds again after the 4m regression...

First off well done one getting this far its a hard slog, I had a similar problem to you.

I started by leaving my ds off at my mums for an hour coming back for 20 mins leaving for another hour. And doing that on and off for a few weeks. Now I can leave him for 4hr stretches at a time with just a snack.

That was at 9 months

might try that thank you for the advice!

Reading with interest as I'm in exactly the same situation. Does anyone know where I could get tips on night weaning?

I can SO relate to this as it was exactly me until a week ago! He's now seven months.

I don't know your exact situation so I am just sharing what I did in case it's a help:

He eat three solids a day - only 6-12 baby spoonfuls and at those meal times I make a bottle and offer it to him. I never force it on him, but he started off my playing with it, chewing the teat because of his teething, sucking a bit, etc. It would drive me crazy as I wanted him to eat but he just wasn't used to it and was exploring. So instead of me getting frustrated and him getting frustrated when I forced him to feed, I let him do whatever until he started getting whiny. Slowly he started drinking more from the bottle until now he will take a full bottle. Score!

I also started following the routine for 6 months plus babies in The New Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford. It really helped that I had a feeding schedule so I KNEW he wasn't hungry at night and also to give him the best chance of filling up at the right times and not saving his intake for night. I wish I'd followed it from birth as now I have the task of sleep training to come as he sucks to go back to sleep.

However, the last week or so he has not fed from his bedtime at 7pm to 10:30pm (HUGE SCORE!) He does wake, but I am able to pat him back to sleep. He then feeds maybe twice between 10:30 (I wake him up for this feed as I go to bed) and 7am when he has a morning feed.

I know every baby/mother/situation is different but I really believe this is resilience and just keep at a schedule/routine until it works and it will take a while because the baby is so used to it!

My partner also works all the hours God sends... BUT if you can get him to give the baby ONE BOTTLE (I got him to do this half an hour before he went to work) EVERY DAY, it will really help. Leave the room and don't make a noise or let the baby see/smell you. If he starts getting angry, let go, but try again the next day.

My sympathies and empathies are with you! Good luck!!!

My Ds is also 7 months and has always refused bottles, dummies etc. however I now give him water through the tommy tippee explora cup and he is doing really well.

He's taking some from the Nuk cup now - woo hoo! Not much but it's a start. Thanks pinkapple