How to wean from BF if baby won't take bottle

[Kmxxx14]

DD is 3.5 months EBF. Won't take a bottle & ive tried a full range of bottles. I'm happy to BF until 6 months but after then I would rather wean onto formula.

How would I do this?

Should I wait until she is weaned onto food and starting to drop milk feeds? At what age will this be approx?

Would I simply start giving her milk in a cup?

I used a free flow sippy cup (no valve). You can get very basic tommy tippee ones from Tesco for £2 or so.
Offer water and move on to milk/formula. Mine never took a bottle but were able to drink expressed breastmilk from the cups when from 8 months.

By the way solids aren't meant to really be a major food source until about a year I think. They mostly try out new flavours and textures etc from 6 months. Milk/formula is still the main form of nourishment for a while.

Ok thank you.

Looks like I may be BF for a while longer if she doesn't take to a cup .

I guess it's only really the first year of her life but it's so demanding & draining sometimes I wish I could get some rest even for a couple of hours. Just need to remember it won't last forever I suppose!

From 6months although your feeding still it's much less demanding as they also can eat and drink water and cows milk occasionally. So daily they would have 3-4 breastfeeds at 6-12 months, but if you needs to go out for the day they would be fine with no daytime feeds and just water, milk in cup and food until you return

Weaning onto food was very gradual IME - my elder 2 DC (one bottle fed, one breast) were both nearly a year before they didn't need milk feeds during the day, older before they dropped their bedtime feeds. Probably at least a month or two into weaning before they were taking enough solids to start properly cutting down daytime feeds.

Trying milk in a cup is certainly worth a go, some babies who won't take bottles will drink from a cup.

Also - have you tried having someone else give DD a bottle while you're out? DS2 would happily take a bottle of milk from other people, but only wanted breastmilk from me when he was a baby.

Mine refused bottles too. Remember once they are eating they will gradually have less milk so it's a bit less constant then now. I was down to just morning and bedtime around 12 months. Eventually my DD had formula from a tippy type cup which was more successful than any of the wide variety of bottles we tried!!