Breastfed Baby Not Wanting Bottle, at All!

I went through the same thing-- different people giving bottles, different times, etc. My son fought it the whole way. The only thing we did is keep offering it...and offering it...and offering it-- every single day. Finally around 3 1/2 months he started to take it. Maybe it was an age thing for my son. By the way, he did not like pacifiers either. Anyhow, it may not be the case with your son, but if you wait it out and keep offering it, time may be on your side. And I put off going back to work for awile too- do not feel guilty, it will be there waiting when you come back :)

N., We did the attachment parenting thing too! And my feelings are the same as yours! Breastfeeding is so worth it too. As for your question, have you tried having husband, friend, caregiver give the bottle? Neither one of our boys took a bottle, they wouldn't even use sippy cups, we went straight to straws. I was extremely fortunate that I was working from home at the time, which may be part of the reason they wouldn't take a bottle. However, one of the nurses at the hospital said she couldn't get my first born to take the bottle in the nursery. Anyway, I can count on one hand the number of bottles both of my sons took. So keep trying and make sure that it is not you trying to give him the bottle. Good luck

Hi
I dont have any advice, just sympathy. My daughter was the same way, and we tried EVERYTHING. I ended up not going back to work until she started baby foods.
Good luck

I had the same problem with my first. the only thing is i had to go back to school and couldn't really postpone it. my mom was mostly watching her while i was gone and husband would when he could. funny thing is, i can't really remember my mom complaining about the baby's attitude.

i would pump while i was away from her (as frequently as she would nurse or if i felt engorgement was coming on), bring the milk home only to find out that she didn't finish all that I had pumped the day before.

at first she would nurse right before i left, then for the 8 hours i was gone, eat about 1 4oz bottle, nurse when i got home. I was bringing home 12-16oz!!! she seemed to make up during the night. we co-slept because i needed to sleep since i was in school and had to be able to focus during the day. i remember only waking to latch her on and then waking at the next feeding. i hear ya about the feet in the back with co-sleeping. i'm pregnant with #4 and am trying to get #3out still. the other morning i woke up on the edge of my bed to find that ALL 3 had trickled in by morning. but do keep in mind, it only lasts for so long. i keep telling myself i'll miss this one day. :)

anyways, this was my pickiest child. but we never tried different bottles. just kept on trying the same one and eventually she was eating what i was bringing home. :)

sometimes i wonder about the bottles parents try. you hear them say we tried everything and it was the last kind that he finally took. did he really like that one? or did he just give up.

doctors say that a healthy child will never starve himself. so i think the toughest part is for the caregiver to be able to be soothing, comforting and reassuring to a baby who is frustrated, hungry and tired and just wants mommy's breast.

hang in there!!! I've managed to breastfeed 3 children and go back to school/work and still get them all breastmilk for a combined total of 29 months.

I echo the MAM brand.
My son LOVES the MAM baby bottles. You can get it at amazon.com
It's great! AND, it does not contain the harmful plastic BPA poisons which can leach out. ALSO, it accumulates NO air bubbles in the bottle as the baby drinks.

Try it. I really love this brand!

Good luck,
Susan

We just went through this with my grand daughter. She is a breastfed baby, 7 months old. If your son doesn't use the same pacifier, I am not sure this will work for you. My grand daughter uses the MAM pacifiers and MAM just recently came out with a bottle. The nipple is so similar to the pacifier, she took to it and is doing very well with it. We had to trick her the first time by letting her suck her pacifier, remove it quickly and replace it with the bottle. Up until this worked for us, we were perplexed and out of ideas. I was watching her one day and my daughter had left a bottle for her and she cried until she fell asleep. I was so upset and had tried everything. I finally got her to drink an ounce or so by dropping it into her mouth with a medicine dropper. Now, we also have her drinking out of a sippy cup. There is one called a Nubey (not sure if I spelled it right) with a soft nipple kind of top instead of the hard plastic. She really likes that even better than the bottle.

PS I just reread your entire post and saw that your son doesn't even take a pacifier. This is probably not going to work for you but may be worth a try.
Good Luck!

Hi N., Sweetie you are going to have to keep working with him, because it's not about the nipples, lactating mothers have a certain smell, that is familar to the baby. a woman in my church breast feed her son exclssively and when she had to go back to work she brought her breast milk to me frozen I defrosted what I needed, her baby wanted nothing to do with the bottle, they relate that certain smell to feeding, and it was gone, the first day I worked with him for almost an hour, and I could not get him to eat, I called her at work, they only think I can think of is for you to come here on your breaks and feed him, her comute was to far to do that, it was hard cause i had 5 other kids to attend to, I couldn't just attend to this one baby. I have been blasted from moms when I recomend that bottle feeding is better, for so many reasons i believe that, becasue breast milk can be pumped and put into a bottle, it took me for ever to get this baby to eat, the first day he was here i was lucky if i got one ounce down him, there was nothing I could do, and with this attachment parenting you are creating a hard to break habit with your 3 year,old and I'm going to asume missing out on some quality time with your husband. J. L.