BF Baby not taking bottle

[E899]

I wanted to start my baby on a bottle to give me a break on an evening. He has had bottles in the past at around 6 weeks as I had mastitis and it hurt to feed so would express and give him a bottle. We stopped this at around 8 weeks.

However the other day we went to give him a bottle and he just wouldn’t take to it. One day I tried it with him, next day my partner and then another time we did it when he was drowsy - wouldn’t take it and just cried and cried. He was definitely hungry as fed from me straight after.

Does anyone know why this may be? Or any tips to try? He is now 14 weeks.

Many EBF babies are bottle refusers unfortunately. If you want to persist though there are many tricks you can try. Helps if you are literally out the house and baby knows you are. Partner can try feeding in different positions, feeding with baby facing away for example. Also trying different teats and bottles - nuk latex were recommended when mine were babies but there may be other newer brands that mimic the boob. Trying out different temps of milk. Trying when baby not that hungry/ when they are starving - lots of perseverance and trial and error! But main thing ime is that it’s not you. He smells the milk and why would he not want it direct from you with a cuddle.

I’d like him to get onto a bottle, I think it helps with him learning to drink himself too. Thank you for your advice!

Does anyone know what teat he should have? We only have the starter ones so slow flow, maybe he’s refusing it as he wants fast flow?

Does anyone else have any tips? Tried again with dad with a Tommee tippee bottle (normally use mam) and still not working! I was out of the room for a good 30 mins beforehand and during.

How old is your baby? If he’s 4 months plus you could try going straight to a sippy cup. Unfortunately it’s quite normal for them to refuse bottles, my ebf DD is now 5 months and has been a bottle refuser since a few weeks old. The only advice the health visitor gave me was to let her go hungry and she would take it eventually - awful (we never took her advice!). We are going straight to a cup when she starts weaning because it was a battle we couldn’t win. I know a few friends who like dr brown and nuk bottles. You might really need to persevere to get him to take it

From my memory it was weeks of trying daily before we got there, and it sounds ridiculous but baby seemed to know the difference between actually being out the house and being in another room! You could make a show of leaving from front door and sneak back in?!!