BLWing / BFing & want to introduce cup & formula milk to baby who has never taken a bottle!

[seaweedspine]

My DD is now 7 months & has been happily (& messily) BLWing for about 1.5months. I'm going back to work in 1.5 months & need to cut out daytime BF & introduce formula in a cup (this was advised by the health visitor rather than starting with a bottle at this age). DD has never taken a bottle (we tried when she was little, but gave up due to her protests). She will take a few sips of water from a soft spouted cup, but of course sees it as a toy. How can we move from this to replacing BF with formula in a cup? (She currently has 3 daytime feeds that will need replacing...) Any advice would be great.

I went on to cups of formula at this age too. I would offer her a cup of formula in the afternoon before or after her nap. She'll probably never drain it but its really more about making the milk avialable to her than worrying about the quantity. As you know with blw she'll take what she needs. So then move on to the wake up feed first thing. Just go straight down and get her her cup of formula, then when she's had a chance to drink a good amount, get the breakfast.
I would wait till your confident she's having enough solid food before stopping the bad time bf. I did a mix of blw and spoon feeding cos I needed to know she had a good meal at times. For a couple of months I gave her oatabix or porridge before bed and this gave me the confidence to know that she would be fine for most of the night and also this helped me give up the bed time bf and go on to the cup.
Hope this makes sense?

hiya, thanks a lot for this advice...i don't think many people are in this situation as most take a bottle before now. unfortunately dd has had sickness bug since thurs so no chance to try yet...

Hello, i'm in exactly the same situation. My DD is 7 months old and I go back to work in 2 weeks
She has never taken a bottle in spite of my best efforts and buying out the entire range of teats/bottles etc etc
But the doidy cup has been my lifesaver and has given me the confidence that it WILL be ok when I return to work and she won't starve
I have only dropped one bf so far - the 3pm one - and she has a cup of formula (think she has between 3 and 6 oz - a bit gets spilled so hard to tell!) and 2 rice cakes with cream cheese. I also try and mash some breast milk or normal milk in her food to up her dairy. And give yoghurts as pudding. Got to drop bed time feed next as do shift work and that's the feed I can't do first which is so sad. HTH

nice to know someone is in the same boat! we may try the doidy cup - she likes to try drinking out of our mugs so i think she might like that. we are so far using the tomee tippee easyflow spout as i think she likes the squeaky sound it makes when she chews it! it is a worry hoping they will get enough to eat/drink when you're back at work isn't it. i think we will also start with the mid afternoon feed as she uses the others to nap & i think they will be harder...that involves tackling getting her to sleep without feeding!