How do i stop BF a bottle/cup/beaker refusenik?

[FarToGo]

Just that really.
My little girl is 8.5 months old, weaning is going well and she pretty much eats everything I give her. She is still taking 4-5 breastfeeds a day. We are currently in the throes of sleep regression so she's night nibbling presently.The caveat is that she will not drink! I have tried pretty much every cup and beaker going. I leave it by her to play with/get used to to no avail. She used to take the odd bottle of expressed milk but has refused since January. We tried her with formula once and that didn't work out either.
I make her cereal with formula hoping that she will get the taste for it but it's pretty pointless when she just point blank refuses to drink anyway! She'll take a maximum of 30mls of water a day and most of that is spat out.
I'm getting to the end of my rope as I need a break - I have loved breastfeeding her and it was so easy but I'm going back to work in 2 months (I'll be doing 12hr day and night shifts) and I want to be able to leave her and to not feel uncomfortable whilst at work.
Any advice will be greatly received!

Anyone?

Argh, you have my sympathies. She obviously will get the hang of a cup eventually (I'm not sure if anyone goes to college unable to consume liquid except by breastfeeding), but I can see the greater urgency if you're going back to work and need her to be able to drink water/milk while you're away.

Cup suggestions if you haven't tried them (you may have):

• Doidy cup, which is basically completely open but sort of slanty so it doesn't have to tip much. DS2 got the hang of this one pretty much straight away, though there was a fair amount of spillage at first.
• Nuk soft spout sippy

Treat any new cups as "playtime" with water so there's no pressure to drink X amount at first.

I've also heard of people just getting childminder/nursery to give lots of "wet" foods (sloppy porridge, soup) and getting the liquids/milk in that way until the cup refusenik starts drinking. You may also find that her solids intake ramps up a bit more around now and she drops down to 3 or 4 feeds a day rather than 4 or 5 (was definitely the case with both of mine), which is a bit easier to work around. Good luck!

Cup with a straw?

Thanks for replying

I have tried a doidy, it wasn't good but I may try again. I've tried a TT soft spout sippy cup, again she turned her nose up at that.

Each vessel I've tried I've given it a couple of weeks at least.

I've not tried a cup and straw tho, do you mean the fixed, non spill able ones? Or just a plain old straw?

There seems to be something strangely appealing about the Nuk soft spout sippy, I think it's because it's free flow but not a hard spout. I know a few cup- and bottle-averse babies who were converted by it! We got ours in Boots.

en.nuk.de/#path=products/drink_training/productdetail&p=10.215.060&lty=m&lid=34&m=1

Try taking loads of different cups, straws etc to the sink / outside and pour lots of water in and out of them and make it a game, including drinking. Also I did this in the bath. I know it's not ideal to drink bath water, but it got him practising. So I knew he could if he was thirsty.

He didn't really drink much until a couple of months after I stopped feeding him - I guess I knew he could if he wanted to. Best for us was plain free flow hard spouted beaker.

DS3 is a bottle refusnik - he bfs morning and evening when I'm around and during the day (he's now 8.5 months) he has formula from a cup. Tommee tippee is his current fave but he likes the doidy cup and the tiny babycups too you can get on Amazon. Try formula - different ones, try it warm, try it cold, etc and soomething will work - we've found with DS3 giving him a snack (so a rusk or biscuit) while giving him milk makes him drink more. He doesnt drink a huge amount (maybe 3 oz during a day) but that combined with lots of milky snacks (cheesy home made savoury muffins, yoghurt, porridge with formula) and water at meal times is enough to keep him going till I get back home.

Thanks. That Nuk bottle is about to be added to my collection!