Changing from breast to formula 6 months

[Megzmoo]

Hi,

Looking for some advice, I'm a first time mum to dd 5 and half months old and have been exclusively bf since dd was born, she has occasionally had expressed milk in a bottle from dh, but doesn't always drink it.

She's been waking a lot more during the night since the clocks changed (was previously sleeping through the night) for the last week she has been waking on the hour every hour all night 🥴 . She's not always hungry but will sometimes just use me for comfort.

We decided to start weaning last weekend, she is just having baby porridge at the moment as we thought she must be hungry and that may be why she is waking.

She is still waking every hour of the night, so I bought some formula to see if this would help or at least dh could give her a night feed if needed! She absolutely hates it!! Dh tried to feed her whilst I was out of the room and she tasted it then refused, was gagging, pushing it away etc. We waited until the next day to try again and she did exactly the same! We also tried a different time of day.

Does anyone have any advice, I would also really love to get her on formula ready for when I go back to work and she goes to nursery to save me pumping all the time.

Any advice greatly appreciated 🙂

No advice, sorry, but I need to know too so piggybacking your thread!

(Have a 7 month old bottle refuser and starting to worry about how she will cope when I return to work...)

I'd buy a range of pre made bottles of formula and see if she takes any of them. Hopefully she'll take one and then you can get the powder version!

You're a step ahead of me though. I'm also returning to work at 6 months and my 4 month old has never taken a bottle, despite trying every single day since 6 weeks (usually breast milk but we have also tried formula). The advice my health visitor gave me is that when you return to work and she gets hungry enough she will drink it, but be prepared for up to a week of hysterical crying and her refusing to drink anything all day as it's not boobie!

@Keyperfect

No advice, sorry, but I need to know too so piggybacking your thread!

(Have a 7 month old bottle refuser and starting to worry about how she will cope when I return to work...)

I'm going to try cup feeding in the next couple of weeks if she's still refusing a bottle. But as we've finally found a bottle that doesn't make her hysterical (she won't drink from it but at least will have it in her mouth without crying!) I'm a bit more relaxed that she'll realise she has to accept it.

It took a lot of trial and error for me when switching my son from bf to formula. He would only drink Kendamil or Nannycare milk and we also had much more success with latex teats (as opposed to the harder silicone ones). I know many people have had success with mixed bottles of part breast milk/part formula where you gradually increase the proportion of formula. I had to stop bf completely before he would accept a bottle as he would hold out if he thought there was a chance of being bf!

Also try mixing in expressed milk with the formula.

And definitely get your husband to do it qhen baby is hungry and you aren't in the house.

Also try different temperatures, my dd liked formula cold out the fridge or room temp but hated it warm

I did what @pinknsparkly recommended. Bought a couple of each of the pre-made bottles for every brand and tried them all.

Here to agree that testing with the ready made worked well for us too, gave some then breastfed for remainder of feed when we first started, then moved on to mixing half and half in bottle with what I had expressed, eventually full formula after that and switched to the powder.

Thank you for the advice everyone, @Keyperfect I thought it was going to be much more simple than this! You will have to let me know how you get on!

I think I will give the mixed feeding a try and try different premade formula, we have only tried cow and gate, which I actually tasted and it was gross!

I'm hoping to have this cracked by Christmas 🤞 or at least so dh can give one feed a day! This mumma needs sleep 😴

My daughter was a bottle refuser at 7 months but she had to go on to formula as I was seriously ill and she couldn't have my breast milk because of meds. After a few stressful days a midwife recommended that I fed her, as that's who she was used to being fed by. I held her in a similar posture to how she was breastfed and bottle fed her. She took the bottle much to our relief! We used the preprepared formulas at first as I was in hospital and it was just easier, then moved on to powder formula.

Bottle refusersnoften take milk from a sippy cup or beaker when old enough. Sorry to say that babies do go through sleep regressions, so it may be nothing to do with hunger. Ds2 totally bottle refused and was a couple of months older when I went back to work. They do just adapt when they have to.

My dd went through a sleep regression at that age. Was awful but after a month her sleep settled again. Had nothing to do with hunger. I never managed to get my dd to take a bottle but she eventually used a sippy cup from 7 months and didn't really drink much for a while. When I went back to work I would breastfeed in the morning and then at night. Offer breast milk and water in a cup during the day. Also tried to keep fluid up by making sure there was plenty of fluid in meals such as soup, yogurt and bfmilk in her porridge.

It might not be the formula she is refusing but the drinking from the bottle.
This is really common for breastfed babies and I had exactly the same problem. After spending a fortune on different bottles and different formulas (none of which made a difference), someone suggested I give the formula a lot hotter than I thought I should have done, as it's actually very warm when coming straight from the breast. Obviously not hot enough to burn her but far hotter than I thought was the right temperature. This was a game changer for me and my baby took to it instantly, so worth a try! Good luck!