How to get EBF baby to accept formula?

[morningglory]

DS is 5 months old, and I would like to switch to the occasional bottle when he is between 6-7 months old (for 2pm feed). I have tried to express in the past, and have never been able to get a full feed out consistently, so my freezer supply is a paltry 3 6oz feeds.

Yesterday, I tried to give him some formula from the bottle after dealing with a week of him screaming after feeding for 20 minutes (he desperately needs to be weaned, but I'm holding out until he's 6 months). In desperation, I plonked some aptamil in a box I kept for emergencies into a sterile bottle and tried to give it to him. He took a teensy taste and spit the formula out and refused to have any. After struggling for 10 minutes, I put him back on the boob, which he greedily sucked.

It isn't bottle rejection because he will accept expressed milk from a bottle without much struggle. Actually, he won't even accept water (tried to give him some during one of the really hot days after walking around most of the afternoon and he did the flicking and spitting out thing).

I need for him to take the occasional formula feed because I work with some charities, and have had a couple stressful car rides back from events when I'm running late and there is no milk there for a screaming hungry baby. I can't express enough to leave a bottle always in the fridge just in case (have done this a couple times, and the bottle ended up having to be thrown away).

Am I getting upset over nothing, and will he just start accepting it when he is weaned and thus used to different flavours?

Once he's weaned, you can give him a snack and a drink of water and then a longer bf when you have time.

Wrt expressed milk, why was the bottle thrown away? Couldn't you have frozen the milk to use next time if he didn't drink it?

I'd say don't stress about formula now - and if he doesn't like it, it's not surprising - it's quite a different taste from bmilk.

Agree with hunker.
Also did you mean you have three lots of 6oz of EBM in your freezer? If so this isn't paltry at all, 6oz is a good amount for a feed.

I had to throw out the bottles of expressed milk because either they were thawed and in the fridge for over one day, or they had been freshly expressed and over 5 days old.

I meant paltry beause there are only 3 feeds. With DS1, I had about 10-15 feeds frozen (I was a bit obsessed with expressing with him...wierd).

If you do want to give him expressed milk sometimes, how aout expressing a bit at a time? I did this sometimes with DS2, as it can be really hard to get enough in one go when you have lots to do and older DCs to look after.
I also found expressing when in the shower or bath worked well for me, the warm water helped let down.

morningglory - last night I tried my 4mth old with a bottle of aptamil for the first time. At first he wouldn't take it, and I eventually worked out that it was because it wasn't warm enough (I'd just emptied one of the ready made cartons into the bottle at room temp). Once heated, he took it without any problems - could that maybe be the reason?

My dd showed a definite preference for Aptamil powder over the cartons - seems to be thinner, but can't speak for the taste !

I mixed breast milk and formula and very gradually chged the quantities with ds1. eg - I put 1oz formula and 5oz breast milk in at first and then chged the proportions. He didn't even notice.

Also, ( anecdotal i know) but my ds rejected aptamil so I used cow and gate. I tasted different formula milk and this was definitely the nicest!