DD wont take ebm from a bottle Help Please!!!!!!!

[kmcomie]

Hello,

I am exclusivly BF my DD who seems very happy and contented(Big relief after been in nicu for a fortnight and being unable to feed her). However i am going back to work and she still wont take a bottle of ebm from her dad or me although i am more will full then my DH who can not bear to hear her cry.
I have tried at all stages of hunger and sleep but nothing seems to work. I have also treid loads of disfferent bottles and teats including the new nature ones. (she wont have a dummy either)

Has anyone got any tips I will be expressing a bottle today for tonight when i go out for 1 hour for the second time since she has been born. ( last week was a disaster and she scramed the whole time).

I love her to bits but i am really tearing my hair out

It was only after I tried the new tomee tipee bottles that dd took bottle from her dad, if they don't work try getting your husband to wear your top while trying to feed her - not in some weird and kinky way, but it will have your smell all over it and she may find it more of a comfort.
another thing we did was dad held dd while I put the bottle in her mouth and once she was happy feeding he held the bottle and I left the room and didn't go back until she had finished.
good luck!

Yeah will try that and fingers crossed i have tried been in the room and also completely leaving the house. do you think it is better for DH to try and not me?????

What I used to do was latch dd on to me, then try and stick the teat into the side of the mouth then try and wiggle my nipple out so that she was sucking on the bottle, not me.
Sometimes she would notice immediatly and start rooting for me again, sometimes she would drink quite happily from the bottle for a couple of mins.

Once she knew she could get milk from a bottle, she just got gradually better, BUT she never liked taking a bottle from me, although better for different people.

How old is your dd? mine was about 4 or 5 months old which I think made it harder as she was that bit older.

Good luck

She is 12 weeks on wednesday but this has been going on for weeks and she just screams and screams i can only leave her for half an hour max and then i offer her the breast

Well you might have luck with my contortionist method. I think the problem with my dd was that she was hungry and wanted boob as that was where the food was, when I stuck the bottle in her mouth she never even tried to suck so never realised that there was milk in there. (It was ebm, so it shouldn't have tasted any different).

Another thing I used to try was 'pumping' the bottle teat with my little finger (inside her mouth) so that she might get the idea. This wasn't very successful but might work with your daughter.

I also seem to remember that one mum from my ante-natal class had to use nipple shields but then had no problems moving to a bottle later. That may be worth a go.

It's a shame you have to go back to work so soon

We had exactly this problem. But dd was quite happy to take a sippy beaker from dad at 5 months when I went back to work (never from me, or if I was around though!).

Never could get her to take a bottle. Must have a hundred old bottles and teats stored in the loft from our fruitless efforts!

I'd also say that it's difficult to 'prepare' before going back to work, when things 'have' to happen - e.g you are at work - it somehow works out OK

Hi,
I'm currenlty going through the same thing with my DD who is 5 months.
I'm having to leave work twice a day to come back and feed which is far from ideal.
The Doidy cup has been recommeded to me for babys who won't take a bottle of BF. I'll let you know if its any good.
I understand how diffcult it is and sympathise.

M

Emsky - def try the doidy cup or a beaker. Bf babies often find it hard to get the hang of a bottle.

And at 5 months it would be much better if she will take a cup or beaker, then you don't have to worry about weaning off a bottle later!

We used to have 2 different colured beakers - yellow for ebm, blue for water, so she knew what was coming!

kmcomie, my DD has taken a long time to get used to having ebm from a bottle, we use tommee tippee closer to nature and she was much better on size 2 teats. think it is important to try when your baby is wide awake from s'one who is not at all stressed about it, try not to be in the room. also never worked when i tried it only when someone else did. currently she has ebm in a bottle from my mum once a week when i go to the gym and she has got better and better and today even took it from her dad.one of my other friends tried lots of diffeent bottles and had success with Nuk. Good luck!

kmcomie - I went through this when going back to work. So many people said to me not to worry, when she is hungry enough, she will take it and they were right, eventually she did.
She would never take it from me though as could smell milk and would try and root for my breast, but took it from dh and mil ok.
It does take time and can be heart-rending but once she realises she can get milk from a bottle, she will remember next time. We used tommee tippee bottles with the nuby teats too although from 3 months there is also a rubber spout cup you could try. Good luck and well done for the bf-ing and expressing so far

Meant to add - you will see plenty of threads on here about the same subject - you are definately not alone kmcomie

kmcomie, my ds3 was just like your dd which was a big shock to me as ds1 and ds2 took milk from Avent bottles without ever refusing them! I got very little help from anyone, dh, MIL, SIL and my Mum all gave up too easily. At one stage he took MAM teats but later started refusing them too! Eventually one day I went to a health spa for the day and he took 4 Playtex bottles with NaturalLatch teats for my Mum! I think it was the fact that I had disappeared and he figured he'd get nothing otherwise!
Apparently the Medela Haberman feeder is good as they don't have to suck hard and you can squeeze the teat with your fingers to squirt the milk into them!

My ds was the same. The advice was for me to go out and someone else to try the bottle while I was gone (babies can smell their mother from something like 30 feet, so know food is not far away). It didn't work for us, but did for friends. My ds had to go straight to a sippy cup (Avent have sippy cup tops that fit onto the bottles) but he was almost 7 months. I don't know if 12 weeks is too young to try a sippy cup, but it worked for us.

I used to take care of a bf 9 month old while his mother worked. When he came to me he refused the bottle and would go for 8 hours drinking only 1oz of milk. He would bf tons when his mum picked him up. He didn't fuss or cry during the day but it always worried me that he wasn't drinking anything. Then one day, he just took the milk from the bottle. No idea what happened or why he changed his mind. So, just keep trying!

Good luck - hope you find something that works.

Going through the same thing with my dd!

shes four months old today bless her

I start work in 2 weeks part time and really want to get her taking ebm happily before then!

i posted on this site a few weeks ago and have tried tt closer to nature, mam teats and nuk ones but it doesn't help the fact that she doesn't enjoy it and will only ever feed from the bottle in the night and that doesn't always work

tried to get her dad to feed her but after one session of fussing and crying its hard for him to motivate himself to do it again esp as I'm not far way.

its making me stressed about returning to work

haven't tried a sippy or doidy cup yet - so time to throw some more cash at the issue!

thanks to advice from everyone, glad there is a current thread on this -please keep me updated kmcomie