Being realistic about breast to bottle

[QueenCassiopeia]

DD is 3months and ebf- I'm trying to switch now and get her to take a bottle and having no luck- she is having none of it ! She has taken three or four bottles before in the early days but nothing since and now fearing that was a mistake and we should of continued giving her top up bottles so she'd always be ok taking a bottle. Anyway just looking for others experiences really as my older one was ff from 4weeks so never came up against this issue. We're using tommee tippee bottles atm (I express in the morning to offer her that periodically through the day) and now going to invest in some mam bottles instead (due to the special teats)- she also hates dummies and always spits them out. My question is realistically how long will it take for her to finally accept a bottle? Will she ever accept them? Please help at my wits end

Please don't beat yourself up about not continuing with the bottles. Even if you had offered a bottle every day, there is no guarantee that she would still be accepting them.

Have a read of this on bottle feeding bf babies and have a search too on the MN archive for previous threads on bottle refusing, there will be loads

Thank you jilted I'll have a read now!

Dd2 never accepted the bottle but somewhere between 4 & 5 months decided that a Tommee Tippee flip top cup (the free-flow, no-valve type) was fine with her for milk as well as for water. If she continues resisting bottles, you could try a cup? Fingers crossed that you find something soon.

Ah thank you monkey I hadn't considered a cup! I will persevere but glad to have the option of a cup should I need it

My ds had a bottle of ebm every day but still rejected all bottles at 3mo.
We managed to get him drinking from a sippy cup reliably by 5mo but it had to be a hard free flow spout, nothing soft or sucky. I went to work short days at 6mo and it was all fine.

I remember the absolute frustration and fear at around 4mo but I'm so so glad we stopped trying the bottles and switched to learning the cup. Bottles made him scream whereas cups never upset him as such it just took a bit for him to learn the skill.

DD2 also won't take a bottle but we've had success with a straw, use the tommee tippee cups with them attached. Apparently bf babies quite frequently respond well to straws, no idea why though!

We had this with dd. Absolute nightmare. She suddenly started taking them again perfectly happily at 6 months, though we had success on and off before then as well.

Try mam bottles if you can - we had most success with those, and I know they've worked well for friends' babies too.

Sorry but we gave up trying in the end. Had another go at 6/7 months when we started weaning to food and she accepted a bottle so it worked out in the end