23 answers

Having Trouble Getting My Son to Take a Bottle

I breastfeed my son who is four months old and recently I have gone back to work part-time so I have to pump and we have tried several different bottles and my son will not take any of them. We have tried Dr. Browns, playtex vent air, soothie(which is the brand of pacifier that he takes), and second nature and none of them work. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Thank you all very much for all of your advice. We have started him on cereal once a day and he is taking the Avent bottle. I don't work very much and sometimes I would like to have a break and maybe a date night with my husband.

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A. I too breastfeed my daughter and she is now 10 1/2 mths old. She wouldn't take a bottle either so what I did when she was 4 mths old was I gave her a sippy cup. I got her the nuby kind with a straw because whe was able to grasp that concept better and it didn't have to be tipped up and it had handles for her to hold on to. They sell they at Wal-Mart and they are only about $3. That really helped and than I didn't have to worry about weening her from me and the bottle. Hopefully that helps!

I used the gerber ones with the big nipples with my daughter and they were the only ones she would take till she was older.

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A.,

I had the same problem. My daugher also used a soothie pacifier. I could not feed her a bottle b/c she could smell my milk and would go crazy, but my husband put the bottle in her mouth and squeezed the nipple so that milk would come. After a couple days she started to take it. It also helps if you are not in the room. My daughter also likes advent bottles. I hope this helps:~)

A....there is a bottle that is shaped and looks like a breast...i think it's in the ONE STEP AHEAD catalog/on line store....we've never tried it, although it has great reviews.

Keep trying....good luck.

Pam

Hello A.,
I had the same problem with my youngest. I tried everything possible to feed her from a bottle just to give me a break from breast feeding but she wanted nothing to do with it at all from me. Try having he father or even your oldest give him the bootle. I finally got her to take the bottle only if I was not feeding her or around her at all. I had to go in the other room and be totally out of her sight. Children will eventually eat if they are hungry. It might take some time but she will give in and take the bottle. You can still breast feed her but realize they are smarter than we think even at a young age. Maintain giving her one type of bottle, something that is closer to what the nipple is shaped liked. If you try to many she will get confused. Remeber you are the parent and not her, just don't give in because it will be like starting all over everytime. I hope this helped :-)

MY DAUGHTER HAD TROUBLE WITH TAKING A BOTTLE THE ONLY ONE I GOT TO WORK WAS THE NUK NIPPLES BY GERBER. SHE TOOK THOSE RIGHT OFF THE BAT . YOU MIGHT WANT TO TRY THOSE.

Have you tried leaving the room when the bottle is fed? Although we started mine on the occassional bottle at 2 weeks just to make sure he would take it because I knew I was going back to work, he would not ever take a bottle from me. He would gladly take it from anyone else as long as I was nowhere around. Maybe you've tried this, but if not it's worth a shot. If he's 4 months, maybe have his sitter start trying cereal as well, he might be more receptive to that. Good luck!

I too am a nursing mother who had issues intially switching to a bottle. My daughter took best to the platex nursers. I use the plastic liners (which i buy in bulk at a warehouse store) and the flat nipple which is sold seperately. I also found that she was getting too tired using the slow flow nipple so went right to the fast flow and she did great. Good luck.

I breastfed my daughter and pumped when I went back to work as well and we used the Avent bottles and they were great, my daughter would only use the Nuk brand of pacifers so she was kind of pickey about the nipple shape and we tried the others you listed but it seemed the Avent bottles were the ones for her. If you do try the Avent bottles don't over tighten the tops they tend to leak, the only drawback. hope that was helpful

My son used the Playtex bottle with the drop-in liners. He started on slow-flow nipples and then we switched him to fast-flow because he was such a fast nurser. I actually had to start him on a bottle before my milk came in (because he was losing too much weight) and then was able to get him to nurse, so he never had bottle issues like your son is having. But maybe this type of bottle will work for you - I hope!

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