DS won't take bottle, regret BF, prisoner in own home, sad

[MummEE2]

Just sitting and sobbing. Sorry for the lengthy post.. I have a 4.5 month old DS who has been EBF since birth. I had been going to gym twice a week for some 'me' time and was expressing BM and my DS was taking it in a bottle whilst I'm gone. He also had formula from a bottle on one occasion and polished all of it off.
For the past month DS has started refusing the bottle. We've tried Tomee Tippee but he never liked that, tried MAM and they were ok up until a month ago. He is now refusing those as well. Also tried NUK with latex teet and he refused that one too. I told my DH to feed him with a spoon or a syringe type thing but he also spits all of it out straight away.
I've been avoiding going to gym now in case my DS is hungry. I'm a prisoner in my own home!!! I've been invited to 3 different friends birthdays etc evenings out. I'd love to go!! My friend also offered to baby sit one evening for a few hrs so me and my DH could have a date night. Again my DS is not letting me as he won't take a bottle.

My DH has managed to go on two nights out and I can't lie I'm very jealous 😞yes I know having a baby is a commitment like no other and it's great-I love it but I need to go out now and then without the child for 3 or so hrs at least. I'm still a person not just a mum.

I also BF my son to sleep almost all of the time. Again I just feel trapped. I was proud for BF my son as I never managed to do it with my DD. But now I regret it. He feeds every hr or so. Yes I know it might be growth spurt. He's a big and healthy baby. I'd feed him every hr happily if I could have s break now and then. I need a break.

I went out for a lunch with a friend recently and my DH messaged me saying DS is not taking any milk and is screaming clearly hungry. I even told him to try give him yoghurt in pure desperation but he spat that out too. So I cut my lunch short and rushed back to BF. And he was hungry.

Please any advice how do I get DS to take a bottle? I need a bit of my life back. Wish I'd never BF, didn't realise it'll give me so many problems. No one else can settle him to sleep (DH rarely can rock him), no one else can feed him. Feel trapped. If only he took to a bottle.

DS was a total bottle refuser - as another idea to throw into the ring, he never figured out feeding cups, but went straight to a straw - we tried it at about 5 months, and he just took to it.

We tried first with a normal straw, which got him started, but then onto a straw cup (one of those un-spillable ones) which he used continuously (well, new versions of the same cup) until he was about 5!

Have you tried making it into breastmilk lollies? You can use special moulds (I think nuby or nuk) or you can use the silicone feeders. I'm sure he would waste more than he would consume but would take the edge of his hunger in an 'emergency' and may then also encourage him to take bottles into his mouth? Have you tried a dummy? Maybe if he could be encouraged to suck on a dummy then it may transition into bottles. Good luck

Butteryellow thank you, it's worth a try.

Luckyduck88 I've got ice lolly moulds, will do that. Tried dummy since he was 6 weeks old now and again in hope he might take to it but he doesn't like that either. Spits it out after a few secs.

Alyosha it's tough knowing DS will probably cry because of me wanting time away. I don't even mind if he feeds loads at night. I see it as because I'm on maternity leave if he keeps me up at night I'll just have a pyjama day the next day to make up for it. So that's not a problem.

Thank you everyone, I've got a few things I can try. I'm not overly optimistic that anything other than waiting to wean will work but I'll try things anyway.

I know I'm a far better mum after having some time away. Even when I went for the lunch which was cut short afterwards I felt full of energy and missed my boy when I got back. I was a lot happier and felt more like 'me'.

Couple of things:

Try just leaving an EMPTY bottle around the place and handing it to him throughout the day to chew on. Think of it as "a chew toy," not something for feeding from. Because when a bottle has milk in it, it puts lots of pressure on you to "get him feeding from it" and you can't have it hanging around for hours because the milk will go off. Whereas if he just spends loads of time just chewing thoughtfully on it, he may eventually just start latching on to it (my daughter suddenly did this at 10mo after discovering a dusty old bottle in the playpen at my mother's house....! Pretty silly at that point, she had already been drinking from a cup for months by that stage, but there you go).

You can also try using the bottle for a dream-feed before you go to bed. Sometimes if they have got a mental block about the bottle, they may just latch on without thinking when they are half-asleep.

Final thing: don't give up pumping (I know it's tempting to, because it is terribly terribly demoralizing to spend all this time pumping only to have the bottle refused). Try the bottle. If he won't take it, don't throw the milk away, just stick a bib on him and try to feed it to him with a spoon--yes, a lot will go down his front, but as you keep practicing, more and more will go down his throat. I ended up doing this, with a sort of feeling of, "You know what, kid, if you are not going to take a bottle, then at least you can spend some time developing another useful skill instead....!" I was glad I did, because she got better with the spoon and I could leave her for a bit, and it stood her in good stead for eating solid foods.

If you do end up with a long-term bottle refuser (mine both were), I really recommend doing whatever you can to teach them to use a spoon: if your DS can start learning to drink from a spoon, you only have six weeks at the most before you can start mixing EBM with the purees and baby cereals and so on, which is what we did, and then everything is a million times easier. And OP, it is also completely OK to start small amounts of cereal and puree right now if you want to (and obviously it is also fine to wait till 6mo if you prefer, no pressure either way, it's up to you).

I have seven month old ebf twins. My LG became a bottle refuser overnight and 3.5 months! Now at 7 months she has magically started taking bottles again. So don’t give up hope that your baby might at some point.

I still don’t leave her for more than three hours at a time though and a night out is just a distant dream. I know it’s hard but they are little and needy for such a short space of time

I'm sorry OP, that sounds so hard. I would keep trying with the bottle feeding, maybe give up BF altogether? You poor thing x

Skimmed the replies so apologies if you've already covered this, but if the bottle refusal is relatively new, have you ruled out any fixable causes? DD went off the bottle around the same age and it turned out to be oral thrush (crap GP missed it, excellent nurse at the children's centre spotted it by chance). Also, worn teats caused a few periods of bottle refusal for us.

Kokeshi123 i gave him bottle to play with today and now plan to do that daily. Who knows, it might click.

TheLastPhurl hat off to you with twins and BF 🌺 thank you I will keep trying as decided that at least there's hope. If I stop trying that means that's it, I've given up and I don't want to give up hope for some freedom. And at least as pp have said things should improve when weaning so when feeling sorry for myself I try to think about that

CarpetGate I'd like to give up BF but it doesn't seem I can as the baby is refusing formula or anything that isn't BM coming directly from me

Dohangoversgetworseasyougetold he doesn't seem poorly at all so not sure on thrush? I bought new teats when refusal started but no change. It just seems one day he decided to change his mind about having a bottle and that's it.