Breastfeeding to formula help

[bellaxmasboo]

Hi all, just wondering if you could give me a little advice from transferring from exclusively breastfeeding to a combination of both then just formula. I was exclusively breastfeeding my son until the age of five months, I'm now introducing one or two bottles of formula a day and have done for the last two weeks. It was going well but suddenly my baby started to refuse the formula bottle milk most of the time, Almost waiting out because he knows he'll get the breast if he doesn't drink it. I'm wondering if there is any advice you can give, also wondering if to change formula brand currently using hip organic. The feeds I swapped out were his 3 o'clock and bedtime feed most of the time but we do change sometimes depending on what we're doing. Any advice would be appreciated thank you X

Let someone else give the formula to stop any chance of your son smelling your milk and wanting to latch on. If someone else isn’t available, you could try holding him in a different position, such as facing away from you.
He’s more likely to resist if he's tired, so perhaps try the formula feeds earlier in the day rather than at bedtime.
With my Dd, I mixed the formula at a 1-to-4 ratio of formula to breast milk and gradually increased the ratio. That helped reduce her resistance to it.
You could try breastfeeding for a short time but not allowing him to fill up completely. Once they have had some breastmilk and they are calm and relaxed, try switching out for the bottle of formula.

Have you opened a new box of formula? HIPP have recently changed their recipe, perhaps there is a difference in taste?

Try different bottles
You giving the milk
Someone else doing it
Give it before the baby is hungry

I expressed b milk. 5 oz b milk 1 oz formula for a day or two, then 2 oz for uka and so on until all formula. Our baby also rejected formula first. I found hipp organic the best tasting too.

You have my sympathies... DD took a bottle fine at 2 months, and then two weeks later decided she absolutely hated it - we tried everything but nothing works, i was planning to switch to formula but here i am still BF almost 5 months later.

She also hates sippy cups, so we've got a Doidy and are working on that - hopefully she'll have the hang of it in September when she goes to nursery!

Well done on bfing for 5 months.

I switched at this age too.

I think the night time and morning feeds are the most 'comforting' ones and the midday feeds the 'hungry' ones, so maybe just switch the midday ones for now?

If he becomes fussy or distressed when being offered a bottle, try cuddle and distraction until he calms down then try again. Try to avoid him getting too worked up if possible.

If you dont already I would make sure the bottle is warm ish, my baby loved a warm bottle and pushed away the cold ones!

Good luck!

Do you express at all? As if you do, you could try that in the bottle first or do a mix of breast milk and formula as someone else has suggested? Has he had bottles before this point or has all of his milk just been from you? As other people have said, if there's someone else at home then you could also try giving the bottle to them and you being in another room. My son started having a "bedtime" bottle with his dad at about 2 weeks and my husband still has bedtime as his territory over a year on, I breast fed until 10 months aside from the nightly bottle of formula.

Oh and with regards to bottles, I got stressed trying to give bottles before I went back to work, he wouldn't take them. But when I went to work he had no choice and slowly upped his intake.