What shall I tackle first? Help me triage!

[unclefluffy]

I know this is essentially trivial - my DD is happy, healthy and generally a pretty 'easy' baby - but I feel stuck.

I want 12 hours off. I don't even want to do anything specific - I just want some time off. I feel like my head is full of baby stuff and there's just no room for anything else.

She's 6 months old, breastfed, just started weaning and feeds to sleep for pretty much every sleep. She won't take a bottle from me or DH. She drinks water from a simple sippy cup, but only takes a few mouthfuls at the moment. I've tried the bottle (tommee tippee closer to nature) every day for a week - no dice. I thought I was getting somewhere with the feeding to sleep, but she just got her first teeth which seems to have knocked us back. She goes down about 8pm/8.30pm, wakes for one feed (sometimes two) and gets up between 6.30am and 8am.

What should I try? Relaxing and letting it happen? A different bottle? Something else? Help!

I would try a MAM teat. My ds has been a nightmare to get on the bottle and at 11 months now I have just bypassed the bottle and gone straight to a cup. I know a lot of bf babies who haven't got on with the TT bottles.

What about giving her milk from the cup?

Nuk teats are good too - different shape sort of rounded one side and flat on the other.

I had this same thing with mine when they were babies. They wouldn't take a bottle at all. Eventually what worked was getting different teats. MAM teats are more like the breast.
Once they'd taken bottles from DH and various other people - they eventually accepted bottles from me too.

Good luck

God, I'm so glad you suggested something! I always like to have a plan of action! Do you think the 0-6 month teats, or the next ones up...? She is just six months.

Next ones up. My ds gets frustrated if the flow is too slow. I had a hell of a job finding mam teats though. I think some Boots sell them.

Go for a cup, the tommee tippee simple flip top cups are great IMO, but if you are keen to do a bottle, the NUK ones are good, or any wide necked bottle with a soft teat, so not avent or tommee tippee ones, you can use the same bottle (not sure about closer to nature) and use a cheapy tesco or boots teat instead. Try the milk a lot warmer than you think it should be and a fast flow. That seems to have worked for me.

The reason I hesitate about a cup is that I just can't see her taking 5 ounces from it. Am I wrong? I just seems to take so long to get even a couple of mouthfuls. And if she was tired (i.e. last feed before bed)...? Maybe I'm just a doom and gloom merchant tonight. Did anyone else's, say, 7 month old take a whole feed from a cup and then go to bed?

I know where you're coming from with that actually. Last night I accidentally smashed one of DD bottles (glass I only had two, one for morning one for night), and as she is 13 months I am reluctant to buy any more. Obviously I can wash up and manage with one bottle..but you know! So I am attempting to give her milk in a cup tomorrow morning and see how she gets on. She is fab with those beakers that have integral straws in though! You could wait a bit and try one of those?

Rats! I wish I had been wrong and you'd said your DD had been on cup alone since 9 months! Anyone else use cup only for an under one? Please! Pretty please!? I just want one uninterrupted night! Or a meal out!

DD would take a full feed from a cup and go to bed in my absence. You will be surprised actually if she can already use a cup even if for a few mouthfulls then it does seem the most likely way to succeed rather than try and get her on a bottle only to have to possubly try and get it off her later.

Ooh! Hope, thy name is IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern!

unclefluffy, sorry! For what it's worth I wish I had percievered (sp) with the cup thing, she's always been brilliant drinking water (although recently has become a mine sweeping, juice stealing monkey) and when I first realised she was happy to take milk from a cup I should have ditched the bottles. But I quite like that quiet cuddle time while she drinks her milk and always seemed more zoned out with a bottle than a cup so that's what I did. BUT a friend of mine did a direct switch from bottle to one of these Super sipper at 9 months and never even tried the bottle route. Her DD didn't ever have a bottle and gave up BF after 12 months (her choice not mum) and continued with the super sipper. It can be done, I think generally the faster the flow the better.

I am not anticipating any problems with my DD because I have never feed her to sleep. I have always given her last feed bottle or breast at least 30 mins before bed. So she knows it's the last drink/comfort of the day, but we have (many) teeth to brush, then bed.

Well she just bit me (with her two new teeth) so has been put down awake. Wonder how long that will last! She's not too cross at the moment, and she will sometimes drop off if left alone... Maybe a leaf out of Stinkermink's book is called for. Of course, when she cries I will feel terrible because I think she bites when her teeth hurt...

I hate being bitten and I hate being stuck with all the bloody work (putting to bed, night feeds, getting up in the morning - all fall to the breastfeeder). And I hate hearing her cry, which she has now started to do. God - now I'm crying.

And I was feeling so much better too .

Do you know what unclefluffy, you have done a great job, come a long way, and as a friend of mine said who was repeatedly bitten by her 8 month old "lets end this on a high". It had gone well, but these things come to an end and if that's what you want to do, then give her a cup and let her get on with it.

It won't last forever, babies will not let themselves starve, be strong you will find a way. You will find a way. Tomorrow get down the shops and find a cup that works for you and crack on, she'll be fine.

crying completely normal, we beat ourselves up over so much, this will end and it will get better...chin up chuck x

Stinkermink is right if you are feeling this is the right time to move on then go for it you have done fantastically well.
Crying is totally fine god as a parent I have shed many tears over what sometimes to others seem like silly things.

Oh did mean to say dd would not at first until she got used to it take the cup from me only if I wasn't in her line of sight at all.

we had some success with mothercare breastflow bottles (supposed to be more like bfeeding) but tbh i think ds just switched when he was ready to (or more likely when i was desperate enough - he refused a bottle steadfastly from 3 weeks old to the day before i was due to go back to work and he was 8 months old).
i just kept trying the bottle, having it rejected, trying it again at the next feed, having it rejected even more hysterically, trying it again, invoking horrified wailing even at the sight of it....and then about the 100th time i did it, when i was almost hysterical myself at the thought that i had to leave him to go back to work and he was going to starve, he just took it and downed it like there had never been any fuss about it at all. and then looked at me rather smugly. now, as im struggling to get him to give the damn bottle up at nearly 2, i can appreciate the irony . just
i know what you mean about wanting some time back to yourself, keep persevering, it'll just click in the end. if you really cant get her to take a bottle yet, maybe work on the waking up for feeds in the middle of the night and on the feeding to sleep (the two may be related, she may be asking for feeds when she wakes because that's the way she knows to get backto sleep?)

Poor little thing got herself so worked up because I was reluctant to put her back on the breast after being bitten that she was still sobbing occasionally in her sleep when I put her down a minute ago. And of course she fed to sleep.

It's not that I want to move on from breast feeding altogether (well maybe I did if you had asked me 45 minutes ago!)... And I can't see how I would if I wanted to. The bottle doesn't upset her - she just won't take it. Being hungry, of course, does upset her!

Most nights she does an 8 hour stretch, then wakes for a feed so I don't feel too bad about that. You're right though - I do wish that on the odd night she wakes earlier/again I could prod DH and get him to deal with her. Maybe if I start again with the feeding to sleep thing I'll (a) feel like I'm doing something and (b) get prepared for the day when she DOES manage a full feed from a bottle or cup.

I take your point about weaning off bottles in future, but all I want is for her to take a bottle maybe twice a week - I'm mostly OK with breastfeeding. Unless the biting continues. In which case I will be back on here and DD and I will BOTH be sobbing again.

Right. Thanks so much for your support - I really needed people to talk to. I'm off to bed myself. These things always feel better after a good night's sleep and since I know I won't get a lie-in I'll grab my extra hour at this end!

Night night unclefluffy, sleep well! Hormones are amazing as are those little people who pull our heart strings. You are nearly there to getting what you want, you can see it, have a bit of an idea of how you want to achieve it, but just have to be strong!!!! You'll get there. Bf is amazing and brilliant, but anyone who doesn't resent their other half for their inability to comfort or feed the baby even once a day is majorly fibbing at some point I think (stress IMHO). So it's all normal and bub and you will get an agreement at some point!! Weaning at 6 months too, you also got through some massive changes in dependance and independance. Take each day as it comes and check into the funny MN classic threads when you feel low or just call out, we're here. x

Thanks Stinker! DH is fab, but I do find myself wishing that he could be a bit more - I know he would if he could!

Poor little DD has a cold now and didn't sleep well, so it's not really the day to try anything ambitious. She did, however, eat a little bit of toast and yoghurt for breakfast and took 1oz of EBM from her tommee tippee cup, so we're on the right track.