heart breaking..... am i doing this right?

[bozette]

After a promising start a couple of weeks ago with giving 5 month old ds a bottle (previously refused it) when dh persisted and after 8 hours he cracked, things are now back to the beginning.
Yesterday, i bf at 0730 and it was 2100 before he took 75mls of formula from the bottle, from dh. He did gobble his solids at 1700. I then did a 2330 and overnight bf.
Today i fed him at 1030 and since then have been offering formula, dh has been at work. He has been refusing. I'm currently listening to the poor little man sobbing upstairs with dh.
Its not that he hates formula, and he can use the bottle, its a matter of principle. He can't understand why i won't bf him.
I'm going to feed him at 2330 again and overnight, but its so horrid listening to how upset he is.

Is what i'm doing realistic? If i persist in offering him formula during the day as well as usual solids, and bf at night should he eventually get the idea? Is it a bad way of going about it? I'm going back to work in 6 weeks and really need him to be on formula completely by then.
Any advice, comments greatly appreciated.

Agree that it might be your presence that's the problem. Have you experimented with going out for the day (at the weekend, when your DH is around) and seeing whether he will take a bottle reliably from him? After all, by definition, the times when you need him to take the bottle will be the times when you are not there.

Hi NumberSix. Thanks, its difficult isn't it! Yse, i've tried ebm, i've been hand expressing loads throughout the last couple of days to keep myselfcomfortable, but he won't take that either.
The difficulty is DH is at work, and works weekends too, or if he isn't is studying for an exam and so doesn't really have the time.
When ds took the bottle the other weekend, he wasn't fussed about who it was from, and took it from both of us. i had food poisioning, didn't manage to give him the bottle for a few days and hey ho, back to the beginning.

sorry policywonk, i'm a slow typer! I really need to stop bf and get him onto the bottle before i go back to work. I work in a rather male dominated environment and long hours and some nights so wouldn't reliably be there every evening to feed.

DS would never take a bottle when I was there, and preferred to hang on until I was rather than taking one at any other time. I wasted so much time and energy the few weeks before I went back to work trying to get him onto formula when I could have just been enjoying the time with him.

In the end when he started at nursery he refused to take much formula for the first couple of weeks and reverse-cycled madly feeding a lot in the evenings/morning/at night, then it suddenly clicked and he was fine with it. We kept on bf once in the morning and once before bed.

I would try to stress less, concentrate on seeing if he will take a bottle when you aren't there, and trust that it will all work out in the end.

Oh, and once he'd got the hang of it I could skip some mornings/evenings and he wasn't bothered.

My baby is so attached to her booby that I'm still breastfeeding at 10 months. At around five months we introduced (with some difficulty) a regular bottle of formula at night but it was given by my partner and she still breastfed after that. If I wasn't around in the morning she would accept another bottle from my partner (not a full one). However I find that with solids you don't need that many feeds anyway (try giving him baby yogurts and fromage frais on top of the savouries), especially towards 7-8 months. Her mainly breastfeeds are in the morning when she wakes up and before going to bed, although if I'm not available she will take the bottle only (I'm doing a course once a week in the evening and come back after 10pm). Would changing his bedtime help? If he goes to bed later you can have morning feed and evening feed with breast and if he's at nursery he will accept formula better from strangers. I also heard of woman who only breastfed at weekends and infrequently and the milk was still there (at your stage the milk supply is established and wouldn't dry up that easily), so I would contact a b/f counsellor and see what they say.

bozette, you are not going back to work for 6 weeks. There is no rush. Your baby is distressed and confused, and probably hungry and thirsty, too. He doesn';t need to be - it would be fine to breastfeed him, and it's great you are going to do so overnight, as this will reassure him.

It may help to get things back to normal with your usual breastfeeding and start again...without a fight

If he doesn't take a bottle, no big deal. He can have a cup in six weeks time when he is at nursery,

Honestly - my feeling is it is not worth a moment's distress for either of you! You at least can understand a reason for persisting with the bottle; all he understands is he is hungry and thirsty and for some reason he's not being bf.

I go back to work in two weeks and my little man won't drink from a bottle. But he only feeds twice day, and eats a lot more food (he's older than yours). He will only drink from a cup I offer if he's in his buggy or recently, his highchair; if I hold him he will refuse it...he will, however, help himself to a drink if he wants it and the cup is nearby...so just seconding what others have said, he may feel much happier about a bottle in the different environment of nursery. For my ds, if I'm holding him, he wouldn't touch a cup or bottle.
Best of luck with going back to work and hope you find a way that works for your ds.

Im with tiktok here. Really isnt worth the upset. Perhaps he will take a cup of formula better in a nursery setting when you are not there.

Good luck, it must be awful to have to stop bf if it was all going well for both of you.

Are you going to express for him when you go back to work?

tiktok, mummoomin, i would love to be able to continue bf for a bit longer, but i really won't be able to when at work. i wouldn't be able to express at work, plus will be working some nights so can't really reley on what he'll be getting from me morning and evening. i need to know that by then he'll somehow take something, thats why i'm starting now.

bozette - ring a bf helpline and talk through your options. Even if it is impossible to express at work (why? your employer is legally obliged to make it possible for you) you can breastfeed at other times....you have options and more flexibility than you think.

And even if you have no options at all, I still think the very real distress your little boy is showing, and which you share, are not worth going through now ....a whole six weeks before you go back to work.

But I really think a dialogue with someone who can go through the detail with you can help.