What to do if your baby NEVER takes a bottle?

[BiscuitsAndT]

My second DD is 6.5 months old - I fed my first DD until 12 months but this time around I'm just done, I'm ready to wean off breastfeeding. But she will not take a bottle. She used to take one when she was very young but we didn't offer one for a couple of weeks when she was about 8 weeks old and ever since then she hasn't accepted a bottle - we've offered it so many times. Have any of you had a child who just never went for a bottle? What did you do when you wanted to stop breastfeeding? I know I've been lucky to be able to feed my girls both times, but I feel so trapped.

Can you try a cup? I think I started DD with a cup when she started solids at that age and taught her to use a straw as well.

Big sympathies though my DD has never taken a bottle.

I just kept buying different Tommy tippee and other sippy cups from boots etc to see what worked.

Trial and error. My DC2 was very fussy and I had a ridiculous number of different styles.

My DS would not take a bottle no matter which we tried. He was breastfed for 18 months and used a doidy cup for water when weaning

Sorry, I don't know the answer to this.

My 19 month old is still breastfeeding, won't take a bottle, and is also completely uninterested in food. I'm getting to the point where I think I'm going to have to cut her off cold turkey to make her eat something else.

I had a real struggle finding a bottle my ds would take when he started nursery at 10m. Finally found one that was boob shaped with a more nipple like teat he accepted. Super weird looking but it did the trick!

We used a doidy cup for them to drink milk when they were in the high chair and a free flow tommee tippee cup at other times. They still did breastfeed until they were about 17months.

DD1 never took a bottle, I breastfed until she was 3.5. She took a cup but only used it for water, I got used to breastfeeding so didn't bother expressing once it was clear she wasn't taking a bottle.

My DD never took a bottle. We breastfed until she was 2 but the feeds did reduce a lot between 6-12 months

DD1 was a bottle refuser and we kept on giving it a go unsuccessfully until the day we overheated it and had to wait for it to cool down. She just liked her milk on the warm side!

Very much trial and error for bottles for no.2 and we had to put extra holes in a test in the end for DD2 - she turned into a bottle refuser and we realised she couldn’t be bothered to work for it. (She was a very efficient feeder but preferred minimal effort.) I went out though and left DH to it - if I was there she just wanted me.

It’s so tough, when you’re ready to stop and want a break. I got to 8 months with both and decided enough was enough, but thankfully by then we’d managed to persuade both to have a bottle/cup.

Three grown up kids none of which had a bottle, first one wouldn't take it when tried about 8 weeks so never tried with the others. All were able to use a tommee tipee spout cup from about 12 weeks.

What size teat are you trying? As my son refused a bottle but he was on complete nursing strike and needed feeding so I tried a size 2 teat out of desperation, which he took. I had been offering a smaller size 0 to not get him used to faster flow from a bottle but he wasn't interested (we had been syringing feeds using 5ml syringes which wasn't sustainable!)

Are you using expressed milk as well? He was a bit funny/hesitant when tried with formula but once established on bottles of expressed milk then was fine when made the switch.

But I would only try this if you are definitely happy to potentially completely stop as he never fed from the breast again after he accepted the bottle. Had to gradually reduce from frequent pumping over a couple of weeks to prevent mastitis as well.

We use MAM bottles and size 2 teats are from 2+ months and size 3 say 4+, though he's only just started managing the size 3s at 6 months as was too fast until now. So would try size 2 to start with.
Also do they take a dummy? As would try same brand bottles as the teats tend to be similar to the dummies I've found.