19 wk old DS refuses to bottle feed - help!

[henrybaba]

I have been solely breastfeeding 19 week DS. We started to try introducing a bottle 3 weeks ago and for first week he was fine (DH gave him a bottle at bedtime - tried both expressed milk and formula and both were fine). But suddenly he has stopped - it is like he doesn't know what to do with the bottle and is just letting milk run out of his mouth, is choking and getting distressed. I am going back to work in March and am getting worried that we will never get him bottle feeding!

Does anyone know any tricks to make it easier for him? How long can I leave it before I start worrying as I want him to be happy bottle feeding by the time he goes to nursery? Have been using Avent teat - should I use a different one? Any suggestions?

The Tommee Tippee Back to Nature bottles and teats are good. The teat is really wide and flexible and is supposed to mimick the feel of a breast. I successfully combined breast and bottle feeding for 4 months with these. What flow is the teat? DS is fine on Avent teats as well, but only the slow flow no. 2 teat. I found that DS would only take slow flow teats while he was breastfeeding and even now the medium Avent no. 3 is too fast for him.

Thanks for the advice - have just bought the Tommee ones so will give them a go and let you kow how we get on!

We have a similar problem - DD won't take a bottle at all. And we are using the TTT Closer to Nature ones. But as she's over 4 months I'm hoping to go straight to getting her to drink out of a cup. Got a Doidy Cup, and a spouted trainer cup, each of which I've tried her on a couple of times, but not much luck so far. She might be better once she has the coordination to handle the cups herself though - she's not going to nursery until 7.5mo so hopefully well have got it sussed by then.

I'm intending to do BLW as well (though haven't yet mentioned this to the nursery) so hopefully she'll take to the autonomy of feeding herself drinks as well as food.

Have tried the Tommee ones with no luck but having found a thread on the same topic which goes back to 2003, I have taken the advice given then and decided to stop trying for the time being.
Worse case scenario DS still won't want to bottle feed when I go back to work and he can just have very watered down rice/puree at nursery and I will BF morning and evening. He may even beable to handle a spout cup by then. We have been giving him formula on a spoon to get him use to the taste and he thinks that is great fun!

Best of luck to you. My 11 month old still won't drink milk from a bottle or cup, and we've been trying since she was 12 weeks. Hard core advice seems to be that you might need to go out for the day and leave him with daddy/grandparent/whoever and let him cry until he decides he will take the bottle after all. Your ds might be a little young for this technique at the moment, but bear it in mind if you need a solution further down the line.

I have recently been in a similar position. Initally, I combined breast and bottle. Then we went to Turkey for 2 months over the summer, and because of sanitation issues I exclusively breastfed. This resulted in my baby "forgetting" how to use the bottle, and I have had a really hard job trying to get him used to it again.

A useful tip (maybe)is to pay close attention to the flow of the teat and try to match it up with how fast your baby feeds. In my case, my baby has a really forceful suck. He is really robust and has never taken any nore than 5 minutes for a full feed. I found that in order for him to take any milk at all from a bottle, I had to make the holes in the teats much bigger (didn't matter which brand).

Anyway, good luck - it is not an easy situation.

Susan

Just in case anyone is till watching this one I thought I would report back.... he did it!! Yesterday and the day before! Just 1.5 oz but it is better than nothing and there were no tears (from DS or me..!)
Thanks for the support and advice
x