How can i get my bf baby to take a bottle?

[theUrbanDryad]

i'm going back to work when ds is 6 months, so he needs to be able to drink from a bottle or cup. at the moment he will take neither. i've thought about leaving him with dh for the day, and at some point he will get so hungry he will take a bottle but i am a big softie and can't really face doing that.

any suggestions would be most welcome!!

what bottles have you tried?? i found the playtex bottles to be brilliant...you can get them from babies r us x

i use the Avent teats as they're the ones that fit with my Avent bottles which go on my Avent breast pump. i've heard the Tommy Tippee Closer To Nature ones are good. anyone?

I had this problem. Are you using formula or ebm? First off, you might have more success with ebm. Next, there are a couple of bottles on the market which are designed for easier transition from breast to bottle. There's Nuk, which have an odd-shaped latex teat that is supposed to be more like sucking from a nipple, or there's Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature which have a very wide neck and a broad flexible teat that is also supposed to mimic the feel of the breast. I had success with the TT bottles. If I were you, I would pick one kind of bottle and stick to it, your baby will get more confused if you keep trying lots of different bottles. Then pick one feed of the day - one where he's neither very hungry nor about to have a nap - and keep offering the bottle at the same time each day. Eventually he will take it. He needs to get used to it and to practice too, so don't worry if he only takes an ounce or two from the bottle and then wants breast for the first few tries. You could also make it your dh who does it. But whatever approach you try, stick to it and he'll get there. This is what worked for me and I had friends who had the same problem and did the same thing and got there in the end too. HTH

i'm using EBM....it's so heartbreaking when i painstakingly pump the milk out then have to toss it away as he won't take it!!

will try the closer to nature bottles, thanks for you advice.

I had this problem closer to nature didn't work for us, but this medela feeder did, even tho it is designed for special needs babies. I found out about it on mumsnet, I'm sure.
Hope you find something. The otehr alternative is to miss out on the bottle and get her feeding from a cup, but, again I couldn't get my lo to do this either.
Good Luck

Only suggestion I have is to make sure for the first coupl eof time its not you that gives him the bottle as he will want to Breast feed from you rather than have the bottle and with someone else there isn't that option