6 month baby. Breast to bottle

[MotherTryingHerBest]

I am struggling transitioning from breast to bottle. He just wont take bottle. Tried different flows different bottles, given different people to feed him. Nothing seems to work. Also seems the breast milk isn’t filling him up. He is asking for it 7 times a night and then waking up very soon after each feed. He eats one bowl of cerelac and rice each in the morning and afternoon. But he is still wanting milk. The very few times he has taken the bottle he will sleep perfectly for 2 solid hours. HELP!

What you are describing a a totally normal baby unfortunately. It early days with weaning, you wouldn't expect to see a drop in milk intake for a while.

You could try cup feeding/beakers instead of bottles?

I have an almost 7 month old that I have had the same issue with.

I've introduced an open cup.

She drinks sips at the moment and I'm hoping to build it up over the next 8 weeks so that she can drink 4oz ready for me to return to work!

So stick with breastfeed at night? Im guessing open cup is good to try when they are completely awake.

Oh sorry completely missed your point about night time.

I cosleep most nights tbh and she's stuck to the boob lol.

If I didnt cosleep I probably would be up 7 times feeding!

I have noticed since weaning she is doing longer stretches in her cot when I initially put her down. It used to be 30 mins but gradually her first stretch has lengthened to 2 hours.

I'm really sorry that I can't give any more advice than that.

I have a 2 year old who used to wake up every 2 hours for a feed. I was so against cosleeping because I didn't want to fall into 'bad habits' that I was practically a walking zombie. I eventually started cosleeping around 8 months and stopped by about 1 year. She now puts herself to sleep and I didn't do anything. She was breastfed too.

It does get better.

Just switch to a sippy cup . I breastfed,skipped bottles completely . It does take a while to let them take one sip at a time and mopping chin as you go .
Just offer water at night when baby has the hang of of cups . They will protest at first but if you mean it you will do it .

Babies wake multiple times a night for more reasons other than hunger - teething, developmental leap. It's unlikely your breastmilk is not filling him up. He wants comfort etc.

Both my DS struggled to transfer to formula after bf til 6 months. I used a two handled spouted cup type thing and chose one feed (mid morning) and basically refused them the boob for that feed until they took the formula. Took abut two weeks! Once they were having it once it was easy to transfer to all day feeds, then a bottle, then night feeds.

This is all very normal behaviour at 6 months and a bottle won't fix it. Both of mine (one combi fed and one breastfed) both had a good week or so of bad nights at 6 months.

Continue with weaning and see how that goes. You can give milk in a sippy cup if you need to as well.

This is a phase though and it will pass. If weaning continues well, they will start dropping milk soon.

Did baby cry a lot when refusing the breastfeed? I am worried if baby cries too much he will negatively associate the bottle with being upset