Please Share your Top Tips to get a Baby to take a Bottle!

[14hourstillbedtime]

We are obviously incompetent parents... sigh.... DS never took a bottle (aged 3 now, so the need is somewhat passed ) DD is 7 weeks now and has point. blank. refused. to take any EBM in a bottle. I imagine her with a little speech bubble above her head saying 'what the fuck? what is this plastic crap? where is my BREAST?!'

We have tried:

1. DH doing the feed
2. Me doing the feed
3. Doing the feed last thing in the evening when DH has time to spend with her (like 30 minutes of screaming, which is fun...)
4. Doing the feed in the middle of the day, when she is calmer (DH still doing this one - he's taken his paternity leave now rather than at the beginning, so he's home in the middle of the day)

It's a no-go on all fronts... sigh again.... As I'm a SAHM, I don't need her to take a bottle so I can go back to work, so that's one level of do-or-die I don't have, but then again it would be nice to go out for more than the time between feeds. Maybe I could do deeply extravagant and selfish things like go for a walk! all by myself! Or go out for a coffee! All by myself! For two hours at a time! Yes!!!

BUT only if the baby takes a bottle - so, any hot tips out there?

All agog to hear the collective wisdom of mumsnet!

Um - this is tricky! I know many HV's suggest to do it when they are really hungry but that never worked for my DS. The only success we had was to BF and then once he was sleepy slip the bottle into his mouth and continue to hold him really close and he would then take the bottle. He then seemed to start to get more used to it and would start to take it much better. But not sure if this was anything to do with us really!

Good luck! Hope someone else has wiser words!

my dd1 tookt he bottle wothout a problem but dd2 refused for months. i am aslo a SAHM so like you it was not do or die. i did have to leave her with mil one morning due to a family crisis and she did have a bottle then but that was the only time. i eventualy gave up for about a month untill she started to suck her thumb. i rushed to the bottle thinking that if she can suck and thumb she will manage a bottle and hey presto it worked. like you i tried not being there, feeding at different times and even wrapping the bottle in one of my tops ( mnet suggestion) but it didnt work for me. my point is that it will happen i think my dd did it at about 3 months

Have you tried leaving the house? With mine I think they knew I was there even if I was lurking upstairs - you dont have to go far and it maybe worth a try - ditto Michaelschumachers tip to try it when they are sleepy.

Hope it works - mine both went through this at different times and its really frustrating - especially when you are wasting precious EBM trying! They both got over it though.

Some babies will take a cup but not a bottle ... here.

I've just come out the other side of this problem. I'm starting back to work on Thursday, so it was getting pretty stressful! My DD took bottles fine a few times when really little (EBM), but we didn't give them often. She then point blank decided she didn;t want them anymore one day. We tried all sorts and didn;t work - sometimes DH could get her to take a couple of oz, but never more and she would be hysterical. Generally it worked best when sleepy. In the end about a month ago we decided to stop BF cold turkey, so she would have no choice (she is 24 weeks now). The first weekend was hell and it took a while for feeds not to be a battle, but we are there now (except that she still doesn't take as much at a time as she should). Obviously I don;t suppose you want to stop BF, but it had to be the way for me in the end.

The main other things that helped were:
Giving her her feed in a bouncy chair / car seat, not on our laps (not sure if because it is different from BF, or if she feels less trapped - she seems to panic less and can move her head away easily. Also, giving her a dummy to calm her and get her sucking first. We also made sure we didn;t push it too much - if she kept refusing we stopped ansd tried again later.

HTH
Cat

DS2 refused to have a bottle, he especially didn't like expressed milk in a bottle.

So, I got a friend to give him some Actimel (the ready made up stuff in cartons) quite warm, and left the room. He DID have some, although she did have to encourage him to put the teat into his mouth (he was TT).

But he wouldn't take it from me, so when he was about 6 months old I gave him some warm water out of a bottle and he drank it straight away.

So, it wasn't the bottle, or the teat (of which I had quite a collection by then). So, once he'd done that for a few days I was then able to experiment with the different milks that he liked.

I BF him till he was 12 months old, but could use the Actimel if I wanted to go out.

So, try with some warm water first, might work for you too!

My dd (22 weeks) is the same. She gets really cross if a bottle is attempted. I do need to go back to work but I think I'll give up on the bottle now and as weaning is approaching hope that by the time I go back she will have some solids and milk from a cup to keep her happy while I'm away. Now she is a bit bigger she does go longer between breastfeeds so I can manage to pop out for a bit between times.

I'm sorry to have no words of advice as DD was also a bottle refusnik (and I went back to full-time work when she was 6 months old so it was hell) and DS (15 weeks) isn't playing ball with expressed milk either.

I've got until November when I go back to work but am worrying already. And, like you say, it would be nice to get my hair cut, go for a drink etc. I don't want to use formula because DH and I have every allergy under the sun, so I want to BF for as long as possible.

My friend has given me a 'breastflow' bottle to try out (it's meant to be more like breastfeeding than those tomme tippee 'shaped like a nork' ones and it worked for her DD). Will have a go and report back.

My ds1 didn't take a bottle, after much trying. For ds2 I thought sod it, and I haven't even bothered trying, so I haven't had the stress to deal with.

The first 6 months have absolutely whizzed by this time because I have not been focusing on milestones and routines and things like that (ds1 still takes up a lot of my attention and time). I've just started weaning ds2 and tried him with some water in a tommy tippy sippee cup and he loves it - he got stuck in straight away.

When I need time off I need it from having both of them at the same time, I find ds2 on his own is easy to look after - I can go for a coffee or walk with him as he will sit in the pram and sleep, rather than if ds1 is there and I am spending all my time keeping him from grabbing things, running in the road etc etc.

Sorry its a bit of a ramble and no real tips, other than to say that once you stop worrying about how to do it, it is a bit of a weight off your mind.

TheOldestCat is that these bottles? Not heard of them before but googled just now after your post. I have been trying the TT nork shaped ones with no interest from dd.

Don't bother! The bottle stage is such a short one, and if they don't like it, I wouldn't expend the time and energy required to persuade them to change their mind. From 6 months they can have lots of milk in food, and water or milk in a sippy cup. This is based on the HOURS I wasted trying to get both DD1 and DD2 to take a bottle !

Bramshott that is the point of view that I am coming to have now. With my dd not far of 6 months now I think I might as well just give up and go for the option of cup and solids whilst I'm away from her. (probably be about 7 months when I am back at work).

Sorry OP, not being any help, just complaining about living with the same problem

Ah a subject close to my heart. dd was given ebm for 10 weeks due to prematurity. Got bf going at 10 weeks. She then refused to accept a bottle. Tried different bottles, different teats, me going out, different times of day. No luck. Then at 10 months of age she decided to accept Same bottle and teat I'd tried many times before with no success (NUK). So I've been making up for lost time and partying

I'm shoving the bottle in after one boob has slowed down. He'll only do it with me so far but am making some progress. (ds2 is almost 1 yr old now)

Bottles with meals also.

Oh good luck. I'm yearning for a morning/ afternoon/evening to myself too!

Thanks for this thread. Ihave posted something similar in feeding. It's so frustrating, isn't it? OP I'm like you in that I'd like to be childfree very ocassionally without worrying that there's a screaming banshee at home!
DD2 is only 10 weeks and we've been trying since week 3. I've tried 5 different bottles with different people at different times of day, levels of hunger and states of waking. The best result has been 3oz but only after lots of tears. I just know she'll get more stubborn as weeks go on.

cupofcoffee - yup, those are the ones.

I'm wondering about not bothering with bottles and just trying with cups later on. I wasted so much of my precious maternity leave last time with the stress. But my childminder is very keen for me to have him take a bottle.

I tried the Breastflow ones and they didn't work for me. The cheapest place to get them is TKMaxx if you have one locally.

Thanks neeko.

Wrap it in a frankly dirty well worn bra. Just poke the tip of the nipple out.

And make sure the milk is warmer than you think it would need to be

just keep trying at the same feed every day. Took 2 weeks of trying (for about 10 minutes) for my DD to take the bottle. Breast feed when the bottle is refused.

And what colditz says about hot milk.

wait until she is hungry and put milk into one of those breastmilk bag things attached to bottle so you can squueze it in to help her get the hang. agree re warm milk and bra idea.

re: going out. just go, for 2 hours at a time - DH takes DS out on sundays between feeds for 2.5 hours at a time, perhaps a little longer.

I use the Breastflow bottles as well, as DS can be a bit of a bottle refusnik (22 weeks). He's another one who took it fine until he got enough personality to refuse! He will actually drink from them compared to just playing with the TT ones.
He will take a bottle if I'm completely not there - so if I go out or when we've left him with my parents, whereas if I'm just in the other room he seems to sense it. He'll take just enough to tide him over, then have a massive feed when I get back, but I'm not too bothered about that as it seems to work! It's probably worth trying going out somewhere locally where you can leave quickly and easily, so DH can ring you if it all goes wrong?

DS never took a bottle either, and no it doesn't make you crap parents.

Have a look at this or this

A friend used the cup method and that worked for her.