Breast to bottle - your help needed if possible

[noisylurker]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here although I've been lurking for a while now! I'm really hoping someone might be able to offer some advice... or even just hold my hand as I'm struggling to stay positive at the moment.

My DS is 6 months old and I spent a week in hospital last week with 'significant mastitis' which has been on and off for a while but became extremely messy. The affected side (the right side) had become very cracked during a previous bout and despite getting help with my latch from a breastfeeding consultant (actually, 3 breasfeeding consultants now), just won't heal up. The other side is usually the 'slower' side and I had to feed a LOT while that was the only side I could feed from. As a result, both sides are incredibly painful and have been for about a month now.

I've been trying to get DS to switch to a bottle but he has other ideas. Here is what we've tried:

a) various bottles and cups and teat sizes (TT, NUK, Avent) and I've eventually found that he'll take about 30ml from an Avent bottle with a teat for thicker fluids, so I'm trying to stick to that one now so he doesn't get completely confused. We're really not having any luck with cups, even a doidy.

b) I try the bottle every day at his midday feed and at others if he's not too tired/hungry. He is screaming about it less - at first, anyway - but still only takes a tiny amount.

c) Obviously while I was in hospital, he had to take it from someone else without me being around, but he still refused (he managed and 18 hour food strike at one point, it was a nightmare).

d) He isn't interested in EBM either and doesn't actually mind formula - he will 'eat' it in whatever consistency of baby rice.

I hadn't intended to stop completely at this point but it's so very painful - I can't describe how desperate I am to reach the point where I no longer have to breastfeed and I'm beginning to feel extremely trapped and down.

Does anyone have any ideas?

I feel for you. I hope you manage to find a solution. I could not get my baby to switch to bottle at 6 months either; ended up feeding long past. Really enjoyed it though, came to terms with feeling 'trapped' and termed it 'needed'.

It sounds like a nightmare for you. I hope someone will offer you some sound advice.

Noisylurker, poor you with the mastitis, it's rotten isn't it? Just before Xmas my ds (now 5 months) started refusing his bedtime bottle and nothing I could do or try would convince him otherwise.

However a few weeks ago he was lying in his bouncy chair and I gave him a teat to play with (the same tt closer to nature one he'd had before).

He had a good play with it then I made up a bottle and gave it to him to hold, and he started feeding himself. The key was that he was in charge and I wasn't trying to force feed him!

Who can say how or why some of these things work but anything is worth a try isn't it? Good luck

Thanks for your replies.

eggontoast, I'm trying to remember to see it that way! I've loved bf overall. It's just too painful now, it makes me sweat every time I feed him.

camflower, we've had just the same situation - he used to take a bottle of EBM every evening and when we were out. Then one day he just decided that bottles weren't for him. He is getting really independent so I'm going to give your suggestion a try.

What about using a transition bottle or replacing the Avent teat with Avent soft spout? Attching handles and letting him experiment?

MyNewPans, thanks for those links - I haven't seen either of those before.

The good news is that today he took 80ml and then at the next feed about 110ml of formula from the bottle,so I'm daring to hope that we might be making some progress. I actually wish I'd known about these earlier as I'd have preferred one of those options to the bottle - I might buy the soft spouts and see how he takes to those. I wonder if you can buy handles for the avent bottles - will go and google.

The evenings are the worst - I think my supply must be slower, so it takes over an hour and he pulls like crazy, I've got my fingers crossed he might take some formula before this feed as well tonight.

Yes you can buy the handles.