Bottle battle

[shish]

I know I've asked before, but I'm desperate. My baby is 19 weeks old. Was mixed fed when we came home from hospital, but rejected at bottle at about 10 days old. Have been battling since then to convince him to take it, but with no luck. Please help!! Any tips hugley appreciated.

my ds also prefers not to take the bottle even tho he knows how. He is nearly 15 weeks and actually prefers me giving it as "mummy feeds me". When he is putting up a fight he is so angry for ages - but we just persist and don't give him the boob until he has taken it from the bottle. A trick i've learnt is to calm him dowm and soothe him almost to sleepy point and then stick it in...he takes it half asleep and wakes up through it and continues.

I have to persist because I am going back to work but tbh if I didn't, I probably wouldn't bother and breastfeed until 1 year and go straight on to cups.

Glad it's not just me then!! calming her down with a dummy and then quickly swapping for the bottle sometimes works but usually not. She also gets bad wind and having her crying hysterically for an hour while we try and win the bottle battle doesn't help the matter. On top of that it throws her routine out of synch cos it has taken so long to try to get her to take it and in the end it's a case of breast or she'll go hungry- I would be happy to let her go hungry but then she would wake up more in the night.

We've found that shaking a rattle to distract her whilst giving the bottle really works!

I find he'll just scream the house down if I try to give bottle when he's hungry. Finally got a professional's advice on this - only cos my usual hv was on holiday. She's suggesting to give him bottle in between feeds to get him used to it first. He took 3.5oz on the weekend!!.. but not much since - What to do??!?

well done shish! keep trying x

Doyou think so?? It's so disheartening.. I feel like we finally get somewhere and then suddenly back to square one.

I agree that you just have to keep trying. When my HV told me that is was just a case of persevering I didn't believe DD would EVER do it! But eventually it will click!

I hope you're right! I'm getting quite worried that if he never takes the bottle. I'll end up having to breast feed for so long.. Want to wean him off by 7-8 months if I can - or sooner.. Can't see it happening somehow!

Really don't know what to do now.. Ds hasn't really taken anything since he took those 3.5oz 10 days ago - just the odd suck here and there.. Do you think I should carry on or give up??

From my expereince - keep trying!
I tried giving my ds a bottle of ebm from 6 weeks but he wouldn't have any of it. I tried on and off a couple of times a week (mainly dh trying) until about 4 months. I decided I would make a concerted effort and give him a bottle every day to see if I could get anywhere. I used to express about an ounce as that was enough for him to turn his nose up at! After a month he started playing with it/chewing the teat and then a few weeks later he actually started drinking it! He's now 6.5 months and there are still days when he won't take any from a bottle but I think it's definitely worth persevering.

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I'm trying the beaker at meal times now (lunch and dinner) with water in it to see if he like that any better. Drank a bit from it yesterday, but generally just likes to play with and spill water everywhere..

I just never expected any of these problems. I'd never heard of babies not taking the bottle, only struggling to b/f. I thought I'd be able to wean him off by about 6 months - but no chance now!!

It's so frustrating that he suddenly rejected the bottle at about 10 days old and I've been struggling to get him back on since.