At breaking point - BF baby refusing bottle

[PinkFizz1]

Hi, I have DD who is 6 months. She is EBF but I introduced a bottle of breast milk very early on to ensure she’d take it and I could leave her with my partner/mum etc. No issues there until she hit 3 months and outright refused the bottle. I’ve tried everything - and I do mean EVERYTHING - to get her to take a bottle again. No luck.

Anyway since we hit 6m I’ve been trying her with a sippy cup and she won’t take anything out of there either. I’m going to try a straw cup but I know she won’t take that either. She absolutely won’t suckle on anything that’s not a nipple.

I am absolutely at breaking point now and I desperately need her to drink milk just once in a while from something that is not my breast.

Please someone give me some hope.

Will she take sips out of a cup without a lid on? So she doesn’t have to suck on anything. I realise it’d be messy but mine loved drinking this way and it may give her a positive association with the drink inside the cup. I haven’t had this exact situation though so im sorry if that turns out to be bad advice when those with experience come along!

DD was exactly like this and the only cup she'd begrudgingly take a small amount of milk from was the old fashioned Tommie Tippee free flow sippy cups. She never took much just enough to get by for me to leave her for a few hours.

My second baby never did accept milk from anything but my boob and he likes it so much he’s 2 and feeding as I type. But she will start to wean soon and so can be left with a meal and some water.

Had this - weaned on the dot of six months (this was 13 years ago advice may have changed). No real advice but my absolute sympathies - I thought I wouldn't be able to go back to work at one point as she would starve but when she started eating she loved it and meant I could cut down the feeds and leave for a few hours.

I was lucky in that i found it really easy to breast feed but god it was tying.

Both of my girls were like this. We gave water in a Tommy Tippee cup, and used fruit pouches for sugar hits while I was working, and they would both have a big morning and evening feed. When a bit older- more like 10-11 months then we started giving cows milk.
One dd would eat porridge reliably (still does even if refusing everything else) so
could fill her with that, and the other would eat either yoghurt or rice pudding, so if needed could cope without me for 12 hours or more while I was at work.
Hugely frustrating though, tried so many things/ bottles/ cups/ milk warm or cold/ formula or breast. Disposed of a lot (litres) of breast milk.
But they both managed til over 2 years with feeding (still feeding the little one).

Sorry if you’re already trying this - have you tried having someone else offer a bottle/ sippy cup/cup while you’re not around?

I went back to work 4 days a week when my little one was six months old and had the exact same issue. My husband (who took share parental leave from 6 to 12 months) got by with frozen breast milk ice lollies and incredibly milky porridge/purees on a spoon (far more liquidy than you would do for normal weaning). She also enjoyed open cup drinking, but only in very small amounts and only without assistance so it was VERY messy and we limited it to bathtimes only 🤣 She'd have a mega feed in the morning, another as soon as I got home and another before bedtime. We did eventually manage to get her onto the tommee tippee sippy cups mentioned by a previous poster and she still uses those at almost 3 years old (the one bonus of being a bottle refuser was that we never had to wean her off bottles!!). I'd give open cups a try but also take the pressure off yourself. If she's 6 months and weaning, dad or your mum can give her purees etc rather than milk for a few hours while you're out! Otherwise, I highly recommend milk icelollies, made with breast or formula milk.

Oh OP I'm just coming through the other side of what you are going through.
It is so hard and I have so much empathy for you. Sending the biggest hugs.
I would suggest at every meal time putting a straw cup or 360 cup on her tray and let her play with it and see if she tries it in her own time. It took several weeks for my little girl to do it and worked.

I would recommend trying an open cup and help her hold it and see if you can give her milk that way or get someone else to offer it her. I found that worked better in the end and also the Munchkin Gentle Transition Baby Cup, Babies & Toddler Sippy Cups with Handles & Lids. This bottle has honestly been life changing! I wish it would have been available 6 months ago. My daughter has really taken to it and loves it now. It took a week or so for her to get the hang of it but she drinks really well from it. Sometimes the wrong way round but she gets enough.

My daughter just turned 15 months and I've finally just about managed to get her off the boob but I've been able to leave her with family for up to 4-5 hours from around 8/9 months old and she had enough fluids while I was away.

Stay strong. Your doing amazing and you will get through this. 🫂🫂🫂

We had this with DD2. Sorry to say but we had to hire a qualified nanny who specialised in this sort of thing. Cost us a fortune but resolved within a week.

I had exactly the same with my son but around the time he was diagnosed with CMPA so it was imperative to get him used to the bottle for prescribed formula. I offered him a bottle 3 times a day (at the time of a normal feed) and at first it was outright refusal, then it was playing with the bottle, then it was drinking a tiny bit, and after 7 days it was complete acceptance and then we transferred from being exclusively BF to be exclusively bottle fed (whilst weaning at 6 months). It was frustrating at first, but it really didn't take long to see progress and it was only a week until he fully took to it.

An open cup worked amazing for my BF baby. He got really frustrated with sippy cups because the flow was so slow.

Also get lots of different types of sippy/straw cups to try. She'll probably use them as a toddler, so it's not a waste of money. So one Tommee Tippee cup, one straw cup, one Munchkin cup, one sports bottle. Test them all! My son now uses a glass at the table, but various sippy cups for on the go.

Neither of mine took a bottle but I did leave them with DH and a cup.

BF babies only take roughly 1 floz per hour so if they have something to eat and one or two ounces of BM it's enough to leave them for a couple of hours. More if you've fed then before you leave.

I second using an open cup. No lid at all. It's the only thing my bottle refusing ebf baby would entertain and it still took a couple of weeks for her to really get onboard with it, at which point she was around seven months.

She's now nearly ten months and takes all her milk that way. It's not even that messy anymore.