Eight month old bottle/cup refuser now refusing breast and biting due to illness

[Gotsuckedin]

My 8 month old has refused the bottle for months, won't even have the teat near his mouth. I am returning to work soon and have an event coming up so we had recently been trying a free flow cup with limited success - sometimes he will tolerate a few drips but other times will scream and push the cup away.

He now has a throat infection and seems to be in a lot of pain swallowing. I have been offering the breast but he won't latch on and is just biting my nipple which brings me to tears.

How am I going to keep him hydrated now? Just wait and hope that when the medicine kicks in he'll take to it again? Any advice please?

Maybe try a doidy cup. My 8 month old was a bottle refuser until 5 months. He did take from a doidy cup and eventually he took nuby after trying lots of other brands. Dd refused bottles too but she accepted nuk eventually with a latex teat but at 8 months he would be capable of a straw cup as my ds drinks water from a tommee tippee 7 month straw cup now. You have to teach them how to do it. It took a day of showing him and he picked it up quite easily. I gently pinched his lips over the straw too and he got the hang of sucking. So you could try offering milk through the straw if you're desperate.

Throat infection wise he might just be on a nursing strike coz he doesn't feel well and will come back to it when his appetite comes back. Try giving lots of milk based food, yoghurts etc to soothe his throat and soup from a doidy cup which is easy to swallow rather than solid foods.

I know he's poorly but I would probably still firmly say no to the biting. Ah ah ah that hurts mummy whilst shaking my head. Ds bites me when he's not interested in the feed and I firmly tell him no. He usually just looks at me and laughs though!