OK, so I was lazy about giving my baby a bottle on a regular basis, and now I am paying the price. I would really like to bring the nursing chapter of our lives to a close before he is a year, and start to wean a couple of feedings per day now. Problem is, he won't have anything to do with the bottle. My first son was feisty but this one is VERY stubborn. Any suggestions?
At 9 1/2 mos he should be ready for a sippy cup. Have you introduced that instead of a bottle?
I know when I felt like weaning at 6 mos my daughter flat out refused bottles. Our pediatrician reccomended starting the sippy cup at 7 mos and she was in love with it. I didn't end up weaning but it's given me an alternative to breastfeeding when I want a few minutes to myself.
Have you tried the Platex bottles. Some of the nipples are soft like that of a breast. I have a 5 and 3 year old, and I nursed both of them for a year. TRUST ME...I feel your pain! You can also try putting some of the brest milk on the nipple of the bottle. Or, you can try letting someone else feed him... because, he's probably looking at you as the main milk supplier and "why should I take a bottle from you when I got the real thing in my face?" Another suggestion could be to mix your breast milk. What helped me and my boys was when I mixed their breast milk with a Gerber Yogurt drink. It's got the sweet taste like breast milk. I hope it all works out for ya!
At 9 months I would recommend weaning to a cup instead of a bottle. If you work on weaning him to a bottle, by 1 year you will just have to work on weaning him off that. All three of my kids weren't partial to bottles, but started drinking formula out of a sippy when they were about 6 months old. It may take awhile to get him to use the cup, but at 9 months, they can eat regular foods as well without having to rely formula or breast milk for their sole source of nutrition(at 9 months all of my kids were eating table food too).
Good luck!
If possible, try to have your husband or grandparent give him the bottle. Often times, babies won't take a bottle easily from a nursing mom because of the scent of your milk and they know you have what they want:-) It may take several tries, but maybe that would work.
I did the same thing, nursing all the time and rarely giving my son a bottle. I wanted to nurse for the first year and it ended up being to 18 months b/c we were moving and I thought it would be too stressful to try and stop right in the middle of all that. The last few months it was only the morning and night feedings. It just eventually tapered off and he stopped.
One question you need to figure out is, is he refusing the bottle because he doesn't like bottles, or because he doesn't like the taste of formula (have you tasted it? it's really gross compared to breastmilk, which is sweet).
If the bottle's the problem, he's plenty old enough for a sippy cup, so just find one that he likes. This is actually a good thing to do anyway because then you won't have to wean him from the bottle later on.
If it's the formula, you can try mixing it with breastmilk and gradually increasing the proportion until he takes it.
Either way, consider that if you can just hold out for another 2.5 months, you won't have to deal with $$ formula at all and can just switch him to whole cow's milk. I found that once my son was down to nursing 2-3 times per day (morning, after work, and before bedtime) it really was no effort at all for me, and actually it was really nice because as he got busier and busier it was the only snuggle time we really got.
