tips on how to get dd to accept bottle-please!

[ciara79]

my 10 week old has recently started refusing my expressed milk from a bottle- she had previously taken a bottle on 2 occassions- from granny and dh. now she is just looking at us like we're totally mad!

Hi, I had exactly the same problem with with my 12 week old dd. At about 9 weeks old she suddenly refused the bottle and screamed until I breastfed her. We persevered though and made it into a game - it took about 4 days and I had to start off by feeding her in her bouncy chair, then dh and granny fed her. Don't force feed her, if she doesn't want it then try again at another feed. Now I can feed her in my arms - she still has 1 bottle of expressed bm or formula each day in case she forgets again!
Good luck

i mixed fed from quite early on (5 weeks). Ds wouldn't take 'normal' bottles very easily but was fine with a haberman bottle. They are quite expensive and you have to order them online (if you google haberman you'll get loads of sites), but we found it worth it.

good luck

I don't want to ver generalise because I know it's happened with boys too but from all the local Mums I know this seems to be a girl thing!!

Little minxes!

My dd started refusing a bottle of expressed milk at 10 weeks after having taken one fine.

We consulted HV who advised we could either go down the cold turkey route (ie I stay out including overnight until she was forced to take milk out of a bottle). Or the gradual coercion route. We chose that one which consisted of;

1. Feed her 3 hours before dh due home
2. When home leave house til bedtime (annoying I know but it worked) 3 Dh try with bottle every eve.
3. Me give her big breast feed after bath before bed (it doesn't have to be dh who feeds her at tea just NOT YOU)
4. Proceed like this until she takes it.

In all honesty this took 6 weeks of hard work! You have to be committed to it but once she stopped being a stubborn minx ( she tied herself over on no milk/one oz in anticipation of her main meal from me later for 6 weeks). And took 6oz she couldn't get enough when she realised what she was missing.

I must admit that I found the whole experienec so stressful and I was so glad of a break that I started mixed feeding her after that and tapered off bf all together by 6.5 months.

But that's just me your dd might not be quite so stubborn!

Hi, just going through this with my DD who is 20wks, who has just started refusing bottles expressed milk.... anyway tryed her today with one off those cheap bottles that you always see in chemist with ortho latex teat(was using avent one) as remembered reading a mag articl once where this was suggested...sat her facing forward on lap with DH distracting her and amazingly she drank all 20z in there and i am sure she would have had more.

My dd would only take a cheapy old fashioned latex teat (superdrug bottles 99 for 3) too.

Not interested in avent/tommy tippee nipple replica stuff. We have enough different bottle types now to open a bottle museum.

Thanks everyone- think we'll be playing the perserverance game then! good tip about the 'cheap' bottles tho- we'll be making a trip to chemist tomorrow. i'll let you know how i get on...wish me luck...

Before you go out and buy more bottles/teats, remember that plastic teats taste nothing like mummy (even those that claim to be just like breastfeeding) so it might be worth using the ones you've got for now and seeing if your little one gets used to it.

Good luck