I'd like my breast-fed baby to have some bottles of formula

[OdyMandrell]

I am in a position where it would be fantastic if my breast-fed ds (5 months old) would start to have some bottles of formula. Has anyone had any success with this?

yes, but not at this age.
ds1 was mix fed from the hospital, he had really bad jaundice, and they wanted to keep himhydrated. so he was alwyas mix fed, tell he weaned himselfoff the breast age 4.5months

dc 2 and 3, i didn let ner a bottle for this reason. however, once they were on solids, i tried to give them a bottle, but they werent havingany of it. dc3 finally took a bottle at 8 months, and wearned herself of the breast a couple of weeks later. or was it one week later?
my kids were given solids at four mnths as tat was the advice at the time.

Ds had his first taste of formula at 6 months and was fine with it. He was used to bottles with ebm though from very early on.

I think it depends on the baby. Some don't like the taste of it, some don't like bottles, some aren't bothered either way!

Thanks for your messages. The more people I talk to, the more I think, as well, that it just seems to depend on the baby - just like every other thing to do with bringing up children! I also have a 2 year old dd so I ought to know that by now! I have one friend who says they tried every bottle / milk etc. under the sun and they just never got their baby to have a bottle. Then I have another friend who says that she introduced bottles of formula at about 4m to all 3 of her bf kids and they took to them without too much trouble. I'm really annoyed with myself because ds had a couple of bottles of ebm at 2m and then about 3.5m but I could just never find the time to express enough to keep practising!

Nah, don't beat yourself up about that - I've heard plenty tales of babies who took a bottle fine one month and not the next. They are contrary wee minxes sometimes!

The upside I suppose is that it might be worth giving it a try every now and then incase he's changed his mind about the bottles. Also maybe try a cup?

Yeah, I'd thought about a cup. The reason I would like him to have the odd bottle is simply so that I can have a night off now and again - I don't want to stop bf. I'm not sure that he'd be very impressed with a cup for his cuddly, comforting midnight feed! Although a cup could be a good way to encourage him to get used to the formula...