Baby refusing a bottle

[newtothis20]

Hello, I’m hoping some of you lovely mumsnetters can help. I was a bit late in offering my baby a bottle and she’s now refusing it having been exclusively breastfed so far. She’s 3.5 months and id like to start combi feeding her with formula during the day and breastfeeding at night to allow me to return to work without pumping. I’ve tried the Maam bottle and Tommy Tippee and she’ll take around 20ml of formula but then cry until I repent and feed her. My husband and my mum have both tried whilst I’ve gone out and neither have had success. Has anyone been through a similar situation and if so did you manage to crack it? Thank you!

Repent = relent. Typing with one hand!

My only suggestion would by try different teats on the bottle until she decides what she likes. Maybe it’s the silicone she doesn’t like? In that case, Maybe try using silicone nipple shields (if you don’t already) to get her used to it? Or, if you don’t have an opinionated witch for a HV, ask them!
I Know you can get ones that are shaped like a real nipple. I use the tommee tippee ones but I wasn’t able to breast feed so she doesn’t know the difference

My 8 month old has never accepted a bottle, we started trying at 2 months. We have tried multiple bottles, DH feeding ( as theyre meant to be more likely to take it from someone that isn't you and when you're out the house ), silicone teats, latex teatd etc he just isn't interested in a bottle.

Persevere is apparently key, as is picking one bottle and sticking to it but there are some babies who just don't accept one. We're now trying giving DS a free flow cup of milk instead which is going better.

We had this problem, we were trying before lockdown to get LO to take a bottle but he flat out refused. We gave up until he started weaning and basically putting everything and anything in his mouth. He now happily takes a bottle from anyone (except me, which I don’t mind tbh) although watch out for the biting of the teat - that behaviour quickly transfers to the boob and bloody hell it hurts.

Express some milk, see if she'll take it then gradually cut down the expressed milk and offer some formula. That way you'll know if it's the teak or the milk.

Mine wanted their milk much much hotter than I was initially happy to give!! We tried every type of bottle and teat and eventually very very warm milk and, in DDs case, we upended the teat into the space above the milk as we warmed it so even the teat got hot!!

Oh dear, @Missmonkeypenny a bit scary that you never got your little one taking a bottle. Not sure what I’ll do in terms of work if that happens! Will persevere though as you’ve said.

@Diverseduvet thats a good idea thank you, will try that.

Thanks all for commenting. If anyone else comes to this thread and has any inspiration then please let me know

If you dont want to pump, can you use nature bond or similar? It'll build a freezer stash to blend with formula eventually. Get a fair bit together and retry bottles, not you of course, around feed time leave and let ds try the warmed bm in bottles. If all else fails, the only bottle my cousins solely bf till 8 month dd will take is dr brown anti colic. They are super slow teat and dont let air in. Just 17 quid for 2! Slow flow worked better with my ds till he was 6 months, then wanted a fast feed so he could play. He reduced bf till it was just once a day, then every few days, then bottle but he was bottle and bf from birth with help of nature bond to build up a supply.

Hello, it’s been a while since I asked my question but just wanted to update that thanks to the suggestions on here my LO takes a bottle quite happily now. I stopped trying lots of different bottles and persevered with just one as suggested. I expressed a bit into the bottle at the end of each feed and gave it to her regularly so she’d get used to having a bottle and then gradually transitioned to formula. Initially when away from me she’d only take an oz at a time, I think the minimum she could get by with until she saw me again, but after a couple of days she increased to 4-6oz a feeding and didn’t fuss at all.

Thank you again for taking the time to offer suggestions, I really appreciate it.

Thanks for update, really interesting. I vowed not to have another bottle refuser but unfortunately looks like might happen again. What bottle was it that you stuck with? Also did you give the expressed feed? Thanks

I stuck with the Maam bottle, although my gut feel is that it would have worked with any bottle in the end. On hindsight I think I was trying to get her to learn to use a bottle and accept formula too quickly so slowing it down and doing it in stages worked much better.

Whilst she was feeding on one side I caught any milk from the other side in the bottle and then gave it to her at the end, keeping it really relaxed and positive. It was a tiny amount, but I think it taught her what a bottle was and how to use it. I did that a couple of times a day for a week and then my husband gave her a full bottle one evening whilst I wasn’t around.

Following that I left her at nursery for a settling session with a bottle and formula. She only took an ounce but seemed happy when I picked her up. She increased the amount she took each time following that, and is now up to 6oz feedings from a bottle which she’ll also now take from me. I hope that helps.

Recently been through this myself and finally had success so do keep trying if it’s what you want/need!

DS had 1 bottle of formula a night for the first 3 weeks and then when dh went back to work we stopped and didn’t think about bottle refusal. Around the same age as to it baby we tried again and it was complete refusal- crying, clamping mouth shut etc. Tried all the tricks- dh feeding, me, warming the teat, different positions, movement, half way through a BF etc etc- no joy. We tried intermittently for weeks and weeks until around 6 months when my mental health couldn’t handle the hormones associated with BF I decided enough was enough. In a last ditch attempt we had bough NUK first choice bottles with LATEX teats and noticed that DS entertained them slightly more- unsurprisingly As silicone teats really are hard and inflexible compared to a nipple and the latex is much softer. Dh successfully got him to take a dreamfeed using the latex teat a couple of nights but when I tried he refused again. We had decided we were going to go cold turkey off the boob and he would take it eventually- thankfully didn’t need to do that as the day we decided to do it he bizarrely just took the bottle straight away! After a few weeks we tried him with the NUK silicone teats as they are longer lasting and he was collapsing the latex ones and he took them and then managed to move him onto MAM as I’d bought a load in thinking we wouldn’t manage to BF as I hadn’t done with my first, so wanted to use them rather than buying more NUK ones.

So mainly I’d say keep persisting, try dreamfeed and definately try latex teats. Good luck!

@newtothis20 thanks for your update. I’m going through this with my 3mo at the moment. We’re trying to stick with MAM for consistency, can I ask what no teat you used? DS will have it in his mouth but just moves it from side to side and doesn’t suck.

Your thread gives me hope, I desperately need a break from time to time but DS is refusing a bottle.

I tried from birth, as we wanted to do combi feeding from the start, but he's never taken a bottle (would grudgingly take an ounce or so for the first couple if weeks, then half an ounce, then acted like you were trying to murder him by even trying by a month). We tried every bottle.cwe tried different people. Expressed milk at different temperatures, all sorts, even syringe feeding and cups. Nope....

We gave up in the end, and whilst she will now grudgingly take a sippy of milk, at 28m, she is still very insistent on boobs.

It wasn't how I wanted it, but we've muddled through and survived.

Hopefully you'll get something to work, but if not you can do it, it's hard to but they don't always give you the choice.

@Betsyboo87 I use the number 2 teats (she was around 4m by then). Also to add as your question has reminded me, she used to just move the teat around from side to side rather than suck too. To try and teach her that there was milk there, to start with I had her lying down facing me on my bent legs (if that makes sense) and the bottle almost upright dripping into her initially, so a very lazy way for her to feed. When my mum tried to give her some expressed milk in those earlier stages she also could only get her to take it whilst lying down in the pram with the bottle almost upright. I don’t think that’s what you’re meant to do ongoing as it doesn’t allow baby to control the flow of milk and so I think they recommend to try and keep the teat level-ish if possible, but will the small amounts early on it seemed to work.

Different caregivers did try different techniques, so when I left her at nursery for her settling sessions they said they found it helped warming the formula milk slightly to take the edge off it, and another said she found she took it when she held her whilst walking around the room. Now she’s fine in any position - but there was a bit of experimentation involved first.

For me personally I found it really helped in the later stages not being around whilst they were trying to give her the bottle, because if I could hear her getting upset I would want to step in and breastfeed her and it wasn’t giving either the caregiver or baby the chance to learn.

Thanks @newtothis20. I’m ready to try anything. DS doesn’t start nursery for a few months but I’ll feel so much better about it if I know he’s comfortable with a bottle. We’ve also been up every hour last night so I’m very motivated today.