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!

Thank you all so much for your fabulous words of wisdom!

Theoldestcat lol at bottle refusnik! Yup, that's our problemo exactly....

RE: cups, DS did actually take EBM from a cup, so that's a possibility...

MumNWLondon Yes, I do sometimes (well, twice ) get to be without both children and GO OUT but always with the terrible, horrible, lurking feeling that DD might wake up and scream her little head off.... Last time I got my toe nails painted (wicked hedomism indeed) and I actually got DH to walk her up and down outside the nail salon so I could feed her if she woke up and was screaming... Are we now both incompetent and paranoid?!

Really feeling for all of you who HAVE to get DC to take the bottle to go back to work... very, very stressful... I wish you all luck!

I'm going to talk to DH this evening about the Collective Wisdom of Mumsnet and we'll pick a new strategy and report back.

(Oh, and live in Berkeley CA, btw, so that's why I post at these odd times, and seemingly leave odd times between posts - bloody time difference!)

MAM teats

MAM teats

MAM teats

We also use the Breastflow bottles and DD took to them straight away (previously refused an Avent and Tommee Tippee bottle). I never used expressed breast milk and just offered DD formula - because she has a bottle so infrequently. Maybe this has helped as the bottle and formula are both different and therefore she isn't tasting my breastmilk and wondering where I am.

Strangely DD won't take a bottle from our childminder so she has a carton of formula in her cup. Works for them and better than an upset baby not drinking anything.

As I said before, dd refused to take a bottle til she was 10 months old but once she did accept it, I was able to wean her very quickly off the breast. She hasn't missed bf at all - or so it seems anyway.