Weaning from BF to Bottle Feeding

[SleepySheep]

My DS is coming up to six months and I would really like him to start being bottle fed, for a mixture of reasons.

He used to take a bottle quite happily, but not now we want him to! Seems to think it's much more fun to use it as a teether and to not swallow the milk!

I don't think he's got a problem with the flavour as he has a lot of formula mixed with his food (he's a big lad!)

Any tips would be gratefully recieved!!

I got DD1 to take a bottle at 5 months by just keeping trying. i would offer it for about 5 mins at the mid morning feed and when she wouldn't take it, then BF her. it took 2 weeks but worked in the end.

you could also try tommee tippee bottles - def preferred by DD2 - and try it quite hot (but obv. not too hot). DS definately prefers it hot rather than warm.

Good luck!

Our DS went on bottle strike at 16 weeks, and I just decided to leave it, and go straight to the beaker, but work intervened so we did need to get him back on the bottle at 6.5mo. Knew it was going to be tough, but I went out shopping, and let my husband do it, so DS couldn't smell me, and so that DH could put up with the crying. Took 20 mins the first afternoon, 10 the second afternoon, and then he was absolutely fine. When we dropped the next feed, DH did that one as well, although DS didn't put up any resistance, and I did the next dropped feed myself. Ended up finishing BF early as DS then started getting really frustrated with me, and pulling and yanking me into all sorts of very painful positions , and I think the flow simply wasn't fast enough

Why do you need bottles at all? At 6 months he'll probably manage a cup with help, and it saves you having to then wean him off bottles at a later point.

Mine was the same, never took a drop when offered a bottle, but managed EBM from a cup from 4 or 5 months of age IIRC.

Thanks for your responses. We do have sippy cups too, I suppose I just thought a bottle would be easier as it's supposedly similar to what he's used to! So far, sippy cup in used in the same manner -just something to chew on......but keeping at it seems the key!

The Tommee Tippee ones really helped us. I was planning to go down the sippy cup route but felt she would miss the sucking aspect of the bottle...and also not be able to get enough out of it! But you could get him used to having milk in the cup as well so that he understands that milk can come from different places.

Maybe try when he has had a feed but still a bit hungry?