Baby won't take bottle - starting nursery?

[surreygirl1987]

Help! My lovely content and cuddly 4.5 month old totally refuses to take a bottle. He's exclusively breastfed and won't such on a bottle at all. He's such a content baby but if we try to give him a bottle he gets upset. We've tried everything - different bottles/tests, freshly expressed breastmilk, different temperatures, different positions and different people feeding him / different times of day. Nothing works... He only wants to breastfeed.

Now this would be totally fine except I'm supposed to be going back to work in a couple of months. And I'd be happy to extend my maternity leave but I'm probably going to be changing jobs soon and if I don't work a certain amount before I leave, I'll have to pay back my maternity pay (apart from SMP). My boy is due to be starting nursery when he's 6 months old though could delay it perhaps until 7. If he won't take a bottle by then... What do I do??? I asked the nursery and they said they've had this before and the baby is generally fine with a feed in the morning and evening ... But this feels far too little for a 6-7 month old baby surely?? I don't want him to get distressed and/or dehydrated during the day. Would I be a terrible parent if I put my baby into nursery knowing he won't take a bottle? Should I just forgo the maternity pay (we can't really afford to... But it's not like we'd go bankrupt or anything so I guess technically we CAN afford to, but it wouldn't be ideal...). He'd be in nursery from 7:30am - at least 5pm 4 days a week 😭 We will start weaning him from probably 5ish / 5.5 months but I don't think this will make much difference at that early stage.

Does anyone have any experience with this or any advice?? I'm happy with the nursery as my oldest child is there and has thrived under their care - it's the not drinking from a bottle thing that really worries me and I have to decide within the next month what I'm going to do as I have to give work a certain amount of notice of my return or any changes 🤦

What about trying giving him in a cup rather than a bottle?

My 4 month old won't take a bottle either. The health visitor said he can try a cup at 5-6 months and some babies never have a bottle.

Just accept he’ll reverse feed and catch up during the evening/night. Feed on arrival and departure. I think delaying to 7 months would help as he’d be a bit more used to solid food. We moved straight to cups (he didn’t even use cutlery until he was over a year).

I only have experience in doing this at nine months. Both babies were total bottle refusers but the nursery staff did get them to drink formula there. However they rapidly preferred solids during the day at nursery and fed from me before/after. Good luck x

I will add a third voice saying try a cup. My wee girl never had a bottle and took to a cup very easily (one of those very simple free-flow beakers with a flip up spout). She didn't drink huge volumes from it at one time, it was more of a drink with meals for us, but she could certainly have if she'd needed to.

I've had this. Twice. Worked on intruducing a sippy cup, which was barely tolerated. After a few anxiety-ridden days (for me), baby started drinking from the cup during the day. And gradually drank as much milk/water as the other little ones. It was fine.

And actually kind of handy not to need to wean off a bottle later (just the boob )

They honestly work it out and adapt once at nursery. If they can't smell you, they soon figure it's milk from a different source or nothing.

Obviously it's great to try different things, but they'll truly figure it out.

My babies had a tommee tippy sippy cup of formula at nursery (refused expressed breast milk) then once around 12 months switched to cow's milk.

Your baby will be fine if skipping the daytime feed (as will have food and water then will make up for it once with you) but will most likely switch to milk at nursery

Thanks. Will try cup soon but at 4.5 months not sure if quite ready. Guess can't hurt to try though! Reverse feeding would certainly be a way around it... would this stop him being dehydrated during the day at nursery though?

These posts are all actually really reassuring, thank you do much. So worst case scenario if he really won't take a bottle... He'll be okay by 7 months to do 9 or 10 hour stints at nursery?

In most cases yes. Apparently some babies sleep that long and go without food in the process (not that mine ever got that memo)

Babies develop a lot between 4 and 6 months so you may find it’s not a problem by the time you start. However if it is and your baby is properly on solids (and drinking water from a cup) by then then you can reverse cycle - I did it. All that happens is he’ll catch up on his feeds around nursery so you need to be able to allow this.