Introducing a bottle to a breastfed baby

[CucumberCool]

Looking for tips and advice on how to introduce my ebf 10 week old to bottle feeding (expressed breast milk).

I've tried a couple of times, first she had a few confused sucks and second time she just shouted at us...

Tried also to try her on a dummy but she's not keen on that either..

With both bottle and dummy the teat is much bigger than she's used to.

She sucks her hand a lot and I've tried to swap her hand for the dummy. She's fine until it goes in her mouth fully but it makes her gag.

I would like her to be used to the bottle for emergencies, to allow my partner to do a night shift and I have a ticket to the theatre booked for my birthday next month.

I will admit, I tried anything and everything to get my older two to take a bottle and it never worked. But with #3 it did. Some babies take to it, others don’t. Don’t be too hard on yourself (or baby!) if it doesn’t work out.

That said, your most likely to be successful if:

• someone else gives the bottle (not Mama!)


• you use pumped milk that is gently warmed (not formula, which can taste strange and unfamiliar at first)


• milk is given at a time when the baby is quite hungry but not absolutely starving

Weirdly, my DC who took a bottle initially would only do so if the person holding him was standing up, and if he could see his favourite light fixture. 😂 Thankfully he grew out of that bizarre requirement after a few weeks.

Oh, and if all else fails: when I had to go out when my older two were tiny, my DH could feed them 3ml at a time with a medicine dropper. It wasn’t efficient and wasn’t something we could have done routinely, but it worked in a pinch!

We had the best success with the teats with a cross cut in them rather than a hole. I was told a breast fed baby can control the flow better with those. However one of mine pretty much when straight to a cup and never had bottles.