Too Late to Introduce Bottle?

No, its not too late. It may take her awhile to get used to it and accept it, but she will eventually. Just keep offering it to her. Offer that before the breast. All of my kids have taken both breast and bottle. My friend only breastfeeds her baby, she got mastitis (sp?) and so she had to give her son formula until it cleared up and he got used to the bottle and took it fine for those couple days. Another friend had the have her apendix taken out just 3 weeks after having her baby. She pumped while in the hospital so that her husband could take the milk home to feed the baby with a bottle and she did fine too. Just offer it more and she should start to come around to it.

Try a sippy cup & skip the bottle. My daughter preferred the sippy cup & never when back, no matter how hard I tried.

Neither of my exclusively breastfed kids would ever really take a pacifier. And I felt the same way! How hard is it to make a nipple like us!? You know it's unfortunate but the industry caters to bottle feeding since that's sadly what most babies get right from the start.

Your lo is right around the time where they do act like she is regarding using mom as a pacifier and cluster feeding in the evening as well. Helps them get more of the hindmilk to power up for the night.

I had to work backwards with my preemie son-going from hospital bottle to breast and what worked for us for the in between was the playtex nurser with the latex (brown) slow flow nurser. By using the drop ins you can get the nipple in or close to in the mouth and push gently on the bottom to squirt just a touch of milk in her mouth. Then she'll understand why this thing is in her mouth. It may take some time but the latex playtex nipple is very, very soft just like your nipple that she is used to. It saved us! I was then able to get my son to the breast and he successfully breastfed till he was 16 months!

Have someone else give her the bottle, not you as she will search for your breast. Dad should try to give her the bottle and only when she's very hungry. Bottles are much easier to drink from than the breast, as a rule of thumb. And if she doesn't need a pacifier, don't give her one. There are kids who are 5 years old that walk around with a 'plug'. I had a friend who dabbed corn syrup on the binky to get her kids to take the pacifier. She told me it was an old 'Swedish' trick. Her kids were always looking for that 'sucker'.

My daughter could never get the hang of a pacifier, she was breast fed by me and Dad gave her bottles of breast milk while I was a work. I didn't return to work until she was 6 months old and expressed milk at work for use the next day. She also got 5%sucrose water during the summer to keep her hydrated when it was extremely hot. She was breast fed until she was about 15 months old and I was pregnant with her little brother. Each of younger brothers were breast fed exclusively by me until I returned to work, and with the boys, it was at 3 months of age and then Dad bottle fed during the day. (We worked opposite shifts, me 7:30-4 and he worked 4-midnite, we handed them off at work. We lived for weekends!!!)

Of course it's not too late, she is only three months old. It isn't necessary for a breastfed baby to have bottles regularly before mom is going to be away.
Important things - someone other than mom should introduce the bottle. Baby should associate breastfeeding only with mom
Make sure that the bottle nipple is heated and smear a bit of EBM on it
Remember that once your baby has no other choice for eating, she WILL take the bottle, but it is normal once mom goes back to work for baby to take less milk during the day and more during the hours that she is with mom, this is called reverse cycling.
Good luck!

You might want to try a different shaped nipple. I think her mother tried 3-4 different nipples before she found one that her daughter would take. I don't remember which one it was. I do remember one time when we were in the ER with her and didn't think to take a bottle with us that she was hungry and the nurse gave her a bottle with the old fashion shaped one and she took right to it. I used that same nipple several times and she took it. Perhaps your daughter needs to be really hungry first.

If you want to try different shapes be sure to use the new shape several times before changing to a different one.

Perhaps try to always give her the bottle first with every feed before offering the breast.

I wouldn't be concerned about her not wanting a pacifier. She'll find other ways to soothe herself. Having to always have a pacifier can be a real drag. Picking it up, cleaning it off, remembering where one is, etc. Then there are the times that even tho they've usually quieted with the pacifier, they spit it out and then what do you do?

My partner and I had the same problem. Except I was going back to work FULL time 3 months after having our girl. We gave her a bottle at 5 weeks and she took it great. "Oh, that was easy!" we thought, and didn't give her another bottle for 2 weeks. Well, she was NOT having it after that AT ALL. We tried everything. Me leaving the house, Dad giving bottle while snuzzling with baby and mama's nightgown, all manner of different nipples, different temps of milk. Oh lord was it STRESSFUL. But, happy ending! The very day I went back to work, she took a bottle. It was only 4 oz. that she drank in an 8 hour shift, but she finally took it. She was 12 weeks at the time. I think I just had to be gone for long enough for her to wise up that the boobies weren't going to be available, and she was hungry. So, you can try different nipples, etc. I wasn't able to be gone from her for anything more than a 3 hour stretch before I went back to work, so we hadn't tried the long stretch of time. Luckily it worked! Keep your head up, everything should work out just fine!

Try different shaped nipples. My children had different preferences. Also bottle shapes do make a difference - something to do with the milk flow.

I don't think its too late, but you are going to have to try and find the ones she likes. My baby will not take anything silicone: binky, bottle, sippy cup, etc. I use the playtex drop ins with the latex nipples, you can only get them at winco and kmart that I have found. Also, she will only use the gerber binky that looks like the old fashioned kind from the cartoons. These are at walmart, fred meyers, and I think Winco. They are latex as well. I think this might make a big difference for you. Good luck!

You can also try just offering your milk from a cup rather than a bottle. You can use a syringe feeder (like a tylenol dropper kinda) or spoon too.

Another possibility to consider. Occasionally, a mom's milk will spoil in the freezer. I don't remember the mechanics of it, but my sister has to scald her milk before freezing or it goes bad. I don't have that issue. When you defrost your milk, does it smell sour or generally normal/sweet? If it smells sour, you can taste it and then if it really is sour you'll need to scald before freezing. There's instructions for that online I think. If it's not sour, you don't really want to scald since it reduces some of the benefits of breastmilk.

Good for you for breastfeeding your baby girl!

My second daughter had a terrible time adjusting to the bottle when I went back to work. We had tried, occasionally, to give her a bottle starting at around 6 weeks, but we weren't consistent. She _had_ to learn when I went back to work after 4 months. Even now, she's not the greatest at taking a bottle (lots of it dribbles down her chin), but she gets enough. And mine never took the binky, either. I think the two are related. My first daughter looooved her binky and took to the bottle much easier. Oh well. Good luck!

Generally speaking, you will need to be out of the house and she will have to have no other options. If you are there, she will be less likely to accept the bottle. Children are very adaptable and will learn to accept the bottle as well as nurse.

Stay with both:-)

Best of luck.

T. Nelson CD (DONA)

It's not to late. Both of my girls were super picky about not using bottles but eventually did. I just had to try several kinds before I found one they liked & they both liked or tolerated I should say different kinds!! I would say the same goes for the binky although my oldest never took one & prefered me. Sooo frustrating. My youngest never took a bottle well until I broke my hip and was in the hospital for 4 nights and I couldn't nurse her for 48 hours due to all the meds during the surgery. Once she nursed & I came home she refused the bottle again for another 8-10 weeks. But with persistance when I had to leave her for Dr appts & such she will take one again. She was 6 months when it happened & is 9 months now. Not from me though. If she gets hungry enough she will take it, but it is easier if you find a bottle she prefers. For my first it was a soothie my second prefers Avent. Just try every day or two when she is hungry & have daddy or someone else give it to her with you out of site. Take some "me" time and take a nap or a nice long hot bath so she thinks you are gone. It will be hard if she is hungry & crying but give them both bottle giver & baby at least 45 min to try and take the bottle while you have disappeared or she will get stubborn & just wait for you to come nurse her. If she cries & that is too hard for you to hear but not for daddy to handle then leave & run an errand so you don't have to hear it and are not tempted to intervene too soon. It may take a few tries, but she will take it if she is hungry enough. My youngest did without a problem when I was in the hospital, the Drs are right, babies won't go hungry they will eat if they are hungry enough. It is just tough waiting them out sometimes. Good luck & I hope this helps ;)

In my opinion, it's not a question of late...it sounds like you haven't found the right bottle nipple and pacifier that works for your daughter. We started the pacifier at about 3 or 4 months and it took several tries. ( My son would only take the Playtex one, but many other people swear by the soothies.) Just my experience as a nanny, but a lot of babies I cared for took the Playtex Flow-Vent bottles quite well.

I also found that some bottles have very tough nipples to get the milk through. This is something to consider, because no baby wants to work harder at a bottle than they do on the breast. The 'breastfeeding' nipples weren't helpful for us at all. If it were me, doing it all over again, I wouldn't invest too much in any one bottle system; instead, I'd try a variety.

What also helped was for me to let my husband feed with the bottle and for me to be out of the room. If my son had a hard time getting started, I'd nurse him for a minute or two and then slip in the bottle and hand him off to daddy. I'd also suggest getting into a routine of using it at least once a day, preferably at the same time you might be gone. If that doesn't work, for whatever reason, keep having your husband work with her in the evenings. The idea is just to keep the bottle present.

It's absolutely not too late - she's just developed a preference for your breast, and if you're the one trying to give her the bottle, it's very confusing to her. She smells you, she knows where your breasts are, and you're trying to give her this rubbery thing that smells funny.

We started our son at 6 weeks so I could return to work at 8 weeks postpartum. It took until I was out of the house, and someone else was giving the bottle for it to be successful, and most experts will recommend having someone else give the bottle.

It's great that you're storing breast milk for her - has anyone told you that it will smell differently when it's thawed than when it's expressed? I personally preferred to put what I needed in the refrigerator a day or two ahead to let it thaw slowly - the smell comes from the protein lipase, and boiling the milk will remove the smell, but it will also destroy the protein.

Good luck!

YIKES! I breastfed all three of my children and had to go back to work with the first two so I made a concerted effort to do as the experts say and introduce the bottle at 3 to 4 weeks CONSISTENTLY is the key word, giving a bottle several times a week so I could pump at work and have my kids get expressed milk. With the first two, they were used to the bottle by the time I returned to work when they were 3 months. With my third, he was resistant from the beginning and knowing I wasn't going back to work this time, I was not as consistent and then wham, in the eighth or nineth week, he outright rejected the bottle, screaming his head off. I sought advice from lactation consultants who told me that it would be a MAJOR struggle, but I may be able to get him to do it if I started introducing the bottle several times a day, continually offering. But in my case, I was told, why bother since I wasn't going back to work and didn't need to pump. For you, goodness, 14 weeks is SO late that it could be totally traumatizing for your poor baby to now get used to a bottle if she hasn't had it much up to this point. Is she taking it at all or does she just scream her head off? If she is taking from it, you may have a good chance. Just keep trying- have someone else preferably feed her the bottle, NOT YOU(best if you're not in the room) and do it at least once a day. But if she's screaming, and crying hysterically at the bottle and won't attempt to suck as my son did, I couldn't bear it and just stopped. In that case, could you work your schedule around her feedings? In a few months, she'll go for longer between feedings, 3-4 hours, then longer as she gets older. I have a friend this happened to and she had to go back to work full time and she told me how the day care fed the expressed milk any way they could, through a dropper, spoon, cup, whatever way they could get it into her baby's mouth since the baby refused the bottle. As another person said, it's good to continue to offer but a 14 week old baby may have her mind made up as my baby did and you may have to find another alternative to feed her. Good luck!