Problems weaning breastfed baby onto bottle/ cup - please help!!

[Cathinleeds]

I have been bf for seven months and we would now like to start trying for another baby. I am in the process of weaning DS and while he is happy to eat food, he's not so happy to leave the breast! In fact he cries and screams at either a doidy cup or a bottle. I have lots of expressed milk in the freezer, and formula in the cupboard too. Does anyone have any practical suggestions for how to get him to take a bottle/ cup? I am going slowly mad trying to do this! Thanks loads in advance for any help.

Well done you for breastfeeding, my Son was a nightmare to wean from the breast too and I found that wrapping the bottle in his muslin sheet which smelt of me/milk helped. Making sure the milk is body temperature and not too cold or too warm. I don't know if you are in a position whereby someone else is prepared to take him for a few hours at a time which coincides with a feed but that would help. Good luck.

My DD would scream if I tried feeding her from bottle until about 8 months and refused cups until over 1 year old.
I found letting her play with an empty bottle, letting her put it in her mouth like she did with toys actually took away the fear or whatever it was. After a few days playing I put in just an ounce of EBM and gave it to her as soon as she woke from a nap. As the bottle was something she had become familiar with she drank it no problem.

May be worth a try? Good luck!

Congratulations on 7 months of bf. I feel your pain for what you're going through now. I tried countless bottles, even the boob-a-like ones but no joy. I also resorted to poking a bottle out of my bra (not the best idea..probably added to the problem....but you know, the things we try....!). Bra/bottle deception plan didn't work. We moved onto cups and built up a mountain of those too. Doidy's were big, almost wider than my daughter's face. Lids/spouts etc were not liked at all. Eventually joy with mini open cups aptly called Babycup. Expressed milk, hot off the press, served at mealtimes and within a few days we started to get the results we needed. My DH and I - one or both of us - would sit and use matching Babycups with her too (water or milk not bm in ours...). Not sure if that helped but I had read some developmental info about baby's learning through copying so thought it was worth a go. In the first few days she was more receptive when it was my DH sitting with her - maybe because of the bf association when it was me? Whichever of us was with her would put our hands on her Babycup together with her hands and take the cup to her mouth. Not much drink in the cup so wasn't a big deal if it spilt and wasn't long before she was using it by herself. Felt great to see her doing it and she was pretty chuffed too. These little cups are good and she now really likes them. Best wishes.

Interested in what dodeca says about copying. I wasn't in a hurry like you, but I used to give dd water in a cup to drink when I was having a coffee in coffee shops. She got the idea pretty quickly.