6 month old wont take bottles or cups

[julie32]

I am going back to work 1st September and need to stop BF but my DD wont take a bottle or any kind of cup, (i've tried a doidy cup).

I think it's a comfort thing, she likes to fall asleep in my arms after a feed. If I try to get her to sleep without BF she screams until she retches.

I've also tried giving her drinks of water with her meals but she spits it out.

Do I need to sort out the sleeping thing first so she won't associate milk with sleeping?

DS wouldn't take a bottle or cup and I spent sooooo long stressing about it before going back to work when I should have been enjoying my last month of maternity leave. In the end he reverse-cycled for the first couple of weeks at nursery and then took quite happily to a sippy cup. So my advice would mostly be to try not to worry about it too much. Keep offering her a cup with water or milk so that she's familiar with the concept, and she'll start drinking it when she's ready and you're back at work. From that point of view it might be easier to keep BF morning and night for a while to make sure she's getting the milk intake she needs while she's adjusting.

DS also wouldn't sleep without BF (another thing I stressed about) until he started nursery, where he slept for them like a lamb and they frequently wished that all the children would sleep as well as DS.

Thats really reassuring, I thought my milk would dry up if I cut back but feeding morning and night would be ideal and take away some of the pressure. I'll try not to worry about it too much and hopefully she will take it when she's ready
thanks

I'd say the same as PortAndLemon - don't worry too much. DD never ever took a bottle and took a long time to drink any significant quantities from cups, but seemed to manage OK when I went back to work. I BF her morning and evening and for a while whenever she woke for a feed during the night. She stopped BF when she wanted to, at about 9 months. She also BF to sleep when I went back to work, but just adjusted to doing without pretty quickly.

Stressing about this took over the whole last couple of months of my maternity leave and it just wasn't worth it.

The only other thing I'd add is that if she is not drinking, you can still get quite a lot of liquid in the solids she eats e.g. yoghurts, fruit, porridge etc etc. If she is getting all of that, it doesn't really matter too much if she isn't "drinking" during the day.

Good luck.

I always give her porridge, yoghurts and fruit of some sort everyday so like you say she should be ok
Thanks for all the advice