Help with Introducing a Bottle Kinda Late in the Game...

I had a very similar problem with my daughter when she was 3 months old (she is 8 month old now). I used the Avent bottles (although I changed later to the Born Free ones). I tried everything and the only thing that helped was to start breastfeeding her and once she was totally engaged in nursing and half slepp I will smoothly insert the bottle in her mouth and then release my nipple! I only didi this at night beforee bed time. Then the people at the day care helped me once she started. She cried a bit but it only took her a couple days to get used to the transition.
Good luck!
ST

It's never too late. Have you tried having someone else give the bottle, with you out of the room? If your baby knows you are there of course she is going insist on having you and not that silicone substitute. If she gets hungry enough and you are nowhere to be found, then she will reluctantly give in and rely on the substitute.

My advice is to have someone else give your daughter one feeding a day via bottle while you leave her and run errands for a few hours. Make sure that you do not feed her at that feeding time and leave sometime AFTER THAT so that she is truly hungry. Eventually she will accept the bottle. Once she sees that the bottle will give her food she will accept it, even if it is grudgingly and it will become easier to the point that you will not have to leave at feeding time.

It sounds harsh, but she will not starve, it will not harm her growth, and it is what I had to do with my first child. He did fine, my husband and I thought we would need therapy.

Remember that a child her age needs at least 24-36 ounces of breast milk or formula a day. That works out to about 6-8 feedings depending on how much breast milk you are producing. Personally, I think that I produced enough breast milk to do 36 ounces in 4 feedings, but I was not a typical producer. I think most moms can do at least 5-6 at a time ounces by the time a baby is 5-6 months old.

Whatever you do just keep trying, but remember to have someone else give the bottle- that's what works!

Smiles,
C.- a mom who has been there

If you're married, I'm sure there's thing you & your husband can do without. Think about it, with the price of gas and the cost of daycare, why go back to work. You can go back if you REALLY want to when your child goes to school. You will only have this baby once, you can have a million jobs. Do you really want to leave your baby with a stranger and miss all the firsts??
I did it with all 4 of my kids and we didn't have much but I know my children love me for it!

I had a similar problem with my daughter. We ended up going with a sippy cup with a flexible silicon spout- can't remember which brand it was. She took really well to that. And at 8 months we discovered by accident that she loved sipping through a straw, and so we did straw cups too.
Good luck!

your little girl may hate it for a while, but you can't give in. going cold turkey is the best way to go. No matter what, a baby will never starve itself. It will notice that you're not giving in and if she's hungry she will HAVE TO take the bottle. my daughter was that way when i needed to get her OFF the bottle to a sippy cup. she refused it 2 days or so then one night she was so tired she took it when i showed her that milk was in it. she didn't mind ever since. have faith!

Hi R.,
I am S. and I am a Postpatum Doula. I usualy recomend that the baby be given a pumped bottle at 4-6 weeks old if you are planning to back to work. At the three to four month old stage they usualy "pick one" so if they are used to the breats 100% of the time it could be a very chalanging to iterduce the bottle now. Try having your husband feed the bottle to her as she is more likley to take it from someone who dose not have a breast! She may have to be very hungry to take it but if she is hungry enough she will. Its just a transition. give it two weeks or so try at the feedings your husband is home. It also is easier when they are sleepy or just waking up so start with night time feedings and early mornings! let me know how it goes good luck!

I had the same problem with my youngest. He did not want the bottle, and I knew if I ever wanted to leave him with a sitter I needed to fix that. What I did, is I started to use a nipple shield while nursing. It got him used to having a plastic thingy in his mounth while still nursing. After a couple days of that, he took the bottle, which he absolutly refused to do before. Once he was taking a bottle, I no longer used the shield, and he never had problems with either again. Hope you find something that works for you! :-)

My 4-month-old also refused all bottles. Finally, we stopped offering her any breast substitutions & tempted her with something entirely different: rice-cereal fed with a spoon. Four months is early for rice-cereal, but it's not too early, and if that's the only thing she'll eat, then try it. We also discovered that, although she rejected all bottles, she would drink my pumped breast milk from a sippy-cup. She even loves adult cups. Good luck experimenting to find what works for you.

Other friends of mine have used pacifiers to get their babies more accustomed to sucking on plastic, to transition them to bottles.

Dear R. ,
First of all don't get too stressed about this . The same thing happened with my daughter . I probably introduced the bottle around about the same time as you . I tried a few different ones an eventually went with the playtex one . It has the little discs for getting rid of air . When it came to the nipples i hated the ones they sold with the bottles , i felt they were to hard . I went to baby's r us and bought the palytex orthodontic ones , they are a brown color . I think they have fast and slow flow . Get both . Someimes i felt scared of the fast flow , so i would take the slow flow and
with i sterilised needle make the hole slightly bigger . I promise you R. she will get it eventually . I remember thinking my daughter would starve but here she is 3 yrs old , so i must be doing something right !
Just hang in there , take a deep breath and just keep going .
Take care , J. D.

I was very concerned the day I went back to work when my son was not quite 3 months and was fighting the bottle so I know what you're going through. I called my doula who is very attachment parenting minded and good for all sorts of advice... she said when the baby is absolutely hungry they are designed to eat so do not worry you baby will not go hungry. I know it is super hard to be in the house when baby is being given a bottle and refusing it so just as someone else said, leave the house, go on a 3 hour excursion and tell dad to have all focus and patience for the baby and she'll take it. My husband still found that my son would not usually take a full feeding, however he'd take 2 ozs, enough not to starve, then hold out for my return. Now he takes it fine and he is 10 mos old. The reason why it is much harder to introduce a bottle around 3 months or later is the baby has volition or choice and a preference now, where if they learn to take a bottle at say 2 weeks old after becoming a proficient breastfeeder they seem not to mind too much cuz they want food primarily. Babies are so smart and intuitive so if you're in the house the baby is likely not to take the bottle.

My son had a similar reaction to taking a bottle (he's almost 3 years now). I tried a bunch of different types too & I had the best success with Dr. Brown's wide-mouth bottles. They have the softest nipples of the ones I tried - Avent's are pretty stiff. The down-side to Dr. Brown's is there are a lot of pieces to clean & sterilize, but once my son got the hang of the bottle, we switched back to the Avent (much easier to clean). :) Dr. Brown's comes in wide-mouth & narrow - I'd recommend sticking with the wide-mouth if you are going to keep nursing & use #1 flow nipples. Good luck & hang in there! :)

I had to go back to work when my daughter was about 4 months old and I used the Medella double breast pump. After a lot of different kinds of bottles, she took to Dr. Brown's vented bottles. It took a little while for her to get used to the bottle, but she took the bottle better from my husband. By about 6 months we were supplementing with formula and expressed breast milk so I was pumping a little less.

Hi There~ I was told to try the Breast-Flow by "First Years". I think they're about $12 for a 3 pack. More like actual breast-feeding. But, in all honesty, my favorite is the plain, old Playtex Nurser with the disposable bags. NO gas pains or trouble switching back and forth, and they're MUCH easier to pack-and-go. I did end up buying the Playtex "vent-air" nipples though, rather than use the laytex nipple that comes with the bottle.

I can totally sympathize with you. My daughter is quite the personality and was very particular about not taking the bottle. I bought and tried every nipple, bottle, formula on the planet. After a few weeks of trying, I gave up. She would scream and I would cry. So, I took a break after awhile I figured out other ways. I would "feed" her the milk with a spoon. A very slow process but she would take it. Then I would just keep trying to put the bottle in her mouth when she was half full and see if she would finish it. After awhile, she got it and now takes the bottle - no problem. Sometimes it takes a little ingenuity and knowing your daughter's personality. Hope this helps. I know it's stressful with going back to work and all. My best advice is to try and be patient. It will happen.

Good luck!

We've had trouble with the bottle since we introduced it at week 3. We just kept trying, every other day or so. Eve would take it for a few seconds, then get furious and scream. We didn't want her to associate screaming with the bottle, so we'd take it away immediately, wait 20 minutes or so, then let her breastfeed.
She's three months old now. Two days ago, she took 3 ounces from the bottle for the first time! She took it from mom (dad usually tried in the past) and it was a faster-flow bottle. I have active let-down and make lots of milk, so the fast-flow is more similar to me, I guess. We used the Adiri natural nurser, but I've heard the Nuk is great, too. We haven't repeated the success, but will try tonight. Good luck!

Hi R.:
I have to go back at work as well, so I totally understand. We started introducing a bottle at 5 weeks, and it's been a big learning experience for my husband. We try and give her one bottle at least once a day; otherwise, I breastfeed and pump. It will be a challenge; my daughter still doesn't do that well with the bottle. I found the Avent nipples and bottles to work best; she would really gag with the Medela system. Just try and introduce it and give her time. She just has to learn the difference on how to suck the nipple of the bottle vs. your breast. Good luck!

I wish I could offer some help, but i'm having the very same problem with my 4 month old. She not only refuses the bottle from Daddy, but becomes frantic at the sight of it. I think we have tried every bottle out there and she still pushes it away. If you find an answer, please please please pass it along...

Since you have to go back to work, your daughter will learn to drink from a bottle if that is her only option. Spoon feeding, sippy cups... no need to think about those things. Babies have fantastic survival instincts. If she gets hungry enough, and if you are not around, she WILL eventually drink from a bottle. You should not be the one to give her the bottle - after all, she is your daughter and extremely bright. :0) She knows you have the good stuff. Just because she won't take a bottle from you does not mean she won't take a bottle from someone else when you are not around and she gets hungry enough. She will, and all will be well. Once she decides she'd better drink from the bottle at day care, the bottle type is really irrelevant, but Dr. Brown's are good. I went back to work evenings when my third son was 6 months old. He refused the bottle for the first night only. After that, no problem. Don't think this has to be the end of your nursing, either. With #4, I worked full time when he was 5-8 months old. He wouldn't take a bottle from me, but my husband could bottle feed him with no problem. I was away from home from 8 am until 6 pm. I did not pump during the day - my breasts adjusted to the schedule and I went on to breastfeed him until 24 months. Please don't stress. Your daughter will not starve. She is too smart for that.

Most bottle nipples were simply too hard for my daughter. She needed really soft ones that didn't drip too fast. The best ones I found were the evenflow healthflow nipples that you can adjust how fast the milk flows by repositioning the nipple. They are very soft and gentler on the tongue and mouth roof. Eventually she was able to use most bottles but she still prefered the soft ones.

I had a similar problem. I actually introduced the bottle at 3 weeks but my daughter didn't end up taking it until 6 months. This was hard because she ate every two hours and it was hard to even to have a babysitter. I wasted a lot of time pumping milk that she refused. I had tried just about every bottle available. In the end, I used Playtex Nurser bottles (the ones with a liner and a wide nipple) and the nipples that are skin colored. I also discovered that she wouldn't take breast milk but actually preferred formula in the bottle- maybe the breast milk reminded her too much of me. Still she only took a bottle from me (which usually doesn't happen that way) and usually when she was in her carseat while we were walking on driving. I think that she's a little picky but maybe my recommendations for trying formula and the bottle might help.

Hi: My kids never would take a bottle with the breast feeding. Whether it was the rubber nipple compared with the closeness to me, I'm not sure. My advice is to do whatever it takes to stay home with your little one. This time is essential and precious for both of you for lifetime bonding. The money you spend for daycare, clothes, lunches, gas will cancel out any gains. If you must have extra money, one of you work at night so one parent will be with your child at all times. Daycare is to keep the child fed, dry and unhurt, and unfortunately are not always successful even with so small a goal. There is no love in a daycare and none should be expected. Please don't leave your child with strangers at 4 months! Put yourself in her place.

Mary

When I tried Keifer, a fermented milk with natural flavors, my daughter loved it, maybe your's will too. In the refrigerated natural foods stores. E. H

I had the same problem or so I thought at the time,with my third, but like you someone told me to try the little feeder cups with the lids and it worked. My lassie followed me around even at 18 months to be fed,,, probably at that stage all she got was air but she just wanted the hug I suppose. Patience is the thing, and if you are at your wits end believe me she can pick up on it...those little ones are cute and can play us for the fools we are when we have them. Just stay calm and dont try to force a bottle.

We had to do the same thing. My now 5 mo old wouldn't take a bottle ever before I had to go back to work. I went to work and she finally ended up taking one from my husband who stays at home with her. She preferred Playtex drop ins with with clear silicone nipples.

I introduced a bottle a 3 weeks based on the advice from a friend. Because my baby was 100% breast fed, my pedi told me to give him a multi-vitamin everyday (Poli-Vi-Sol). This kept him on the routine of having a bottle everyday. He did go through a phase of not wanting it, but I just kept with it. He is now 6 months old and drinking out of a sippy cup. When my sister watched him, she noticed that if she held him close, like close to her chest, he didn't want the bottle. He wanted to nurse. She tried holding him away from her chest and he sucked it down. Also, I have noticed that he is not able to get as much as he wants out of the NUK nipple. You may want to try a stage 2 nipple. She may choke a few times because it comes out faster, but she probably get upset that it comes out so slowly. After about 3 months my little guy would not take the newborn or stage 1 nipples. I really like the light blue nipples. Not sure what brand they are, but if you look in the nipple section at the store you will see the nipples that are light blue. Get the stage 2. It works with the Medella bottles. That is what I have used for about 3 months now. Good luck! I have a friend going through the exact same thing you are.

first years breast flow bottles are AMAZING!!!! they are supposed to simulate the breast, even let down. It has a 2 part nipple. I recommend that. http://www.amazon.com/First-Years-Breastflow-Starter-Kit/...
read the reviews on amazon above.

Hello. I went through the same exact thing. I tried every single nipple including the one shaped as a breast. I thought I was going to have to come home every few hours to feed my son. He refused to take the bottle. At one point I spoon fed him and fed him with a syringe. My Dr. said to hold off breast feeding until he became very hungry. I was devastated to see my son hungry but I had to do it. I was also 4 months when I tried this and he eventually took to a bottle at 5 months. I had to miss two more weeks of work to try to wean him off. Your daughter will eventually give in. I don't mean to scare you but it was a struggle.

THE ONE THING THAT HELPED TREMENDOUSLY WAS THE FOLLOWING:

MY MOTHER FED HIM. IF YOUR TOO CLOSE TO YOUR DAUGHTER WHEN SHE IS GIVEN THE BOTTLE, SHE WILL KNOW THAT THE BREAST IS CLOSE BY. Try having someone else feed her. My mom did most of the work and I love her for that.

I my daughter also went on a "bottle strike". It took some patience, but I found a nipple at pump station that had a flat top and multiple holes on top that she took to. I also found that I couldn't feed her from the bottle in the cradle position, I would sit her on my lap upright and face her out. Also, I would offer her the bottle when she wasn't totally hungry. I would nurse her when she was hungry and then offer her a bottle about an hour later-that really did the trick. She then got used to the idea of a bottle when she was more relaxed. Eventually she would take the bottle (and would need to about one day per week).

I had the same problem. I bought every type of bottle/nipple on the market. It took my Grandmother to give him a bottle and then it was done. I took him to her hungry and he took it with no problem from that moment on. Good Luck.

I took a bearst feeding class and teacher told us if the baby won't take a regluar bottle to try Second Nature bottles you can get them at babies r us. The nipple is like a really nipple. It has a lot of little holes the milk cames out of. I have told a couple other people and it help them.
Good Luck !
J.

Hi there,
Have you tried having someone else give her the bottles during the transition? I know that babies who nurse (esp. 4 mts. and up) wonder why we are trying to give them this bottle-thing when they know a perfectly good breast in near by. It might help if a husband or a friend tried for a few bottles with her while you vacate the room. I know it is inconvenient but it might work! Then after she is used to the bottle a bit maybe she won't object as much to you giving it. Also, the day care provider will probably be able to help with the transition since she definitely has no breast to offer!

try a fast flow nipple on the bottle

The easiest way to introduce the bottle is to have someone other than mom give the bottle to start with. You may also play around with the way the she is held too so it isn't exactly in the position of nursing. Be patient; it will happen. I've been a childcare provider for 17 years and it always works out; don't worry.

You may need to have someone other than yourself introduce the bottle. You may even need to leave the house to do it as she can smell mama. She's so used to your snuggly breast. I had to let my husband do it ( a few times! ) while I took a bath or left to get come coffee. It could be the flow from the nipples/bottles but more than likely, she just wants you.

J.

have you tried a latex nipple instead of the silicon? my experience is that the latext is much softer and molds to my child's mouth more like a natural human nipple. I did introduce the bottle earlier so I wouldn't have the isssues but did find that helped. also...have you tried setting the baby down in a bouncer or the like and feeding that way instead of holding the baby...that and having someone other than mom introduce the bottle?

those are the only suggestions I have. I hope it all works out. Good luck!

Hi there- My son nursed until he was a year old and we introduced bottles at around 4-5 month with freshly pumped brest milk. He did not want to take a bottle from me at first, how ever from my husband he would, I know it seems strange but if she is hungry she will eat. Are you feeling bad about ginving her a bottle? Are you stressed out about it? Because if you are she can feel it. Are you planing to nurse and pump? if you are that might help as well. I think they get confused being cose to us smellimg the milk and getting a bottle. I mixed in small amounts of vanilla soy milk to win him over. Hope this helps

HI! I have been told that you can't be the person to give it to her. When she's with you she'll just want to nurse. Have dad or someone else try. (You're not even supposed to be in the room!) Also, at this pt you could fore-go the bottle all together and go straight for a sippy cup. You might thank yourself when it comes time to wean her from the bottle.

We used the Dr. Brown bottles and my daughter really seemed to like them. Also, try starting with a sightly faster flowing nipple. The milk will come out more easily and she may respond to the bottle better. Be on alert though, if it seems too fast she may choke a little on the milk. I hope this helps.

You might try using a sippy cup instead of the bottle. That worked for my little one.

Try the "Mam" baby bottles... they are really great AND they do NOT contain the harmful plastics that can leech into our baby's body, and are "BPA" free. You can find it at Amazon.com, this is where I got mine.
Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-###-###-####-###...

I use these bottles exclusively and had never had any problems with it whatsoever. I love these bottles.
Good luck,
~Susan
www.cafepress.com/littlegoogoo

I don't know if you have already tried this, but I have read that if someone else (dad, grandma, etc.) offers the bottle, the baby may take it more willingly because she won't associate you with the bottle (the bonding, nursing aspect and the availability of that closeness to you). Good luck!