Breastfed Baby Won't Take Bottle - Schenectady,NY

Try having someone give him some pumped milk from a cup and see if he'll drink that. My daughter wouldn't use any kind of bottles, but would happily drink from a cup (we actually used a small cereal bowl and shallow tea cup, but a sippy cup may also work).

I think part of the problem is that when the baby is very hungry, ie first feeding of the morning, he is less likely to accept something new like a bottle. He is crying from hunger and frustration, just wants to nurse. So - try to introduce the bottle when he is not hungry - in other words - nurse him at your usual time. After he has nursed on one side, give him the bottle (or have someone else give it) rather than switching sides. Since his true hunger has already been satisfied, he may be more willing to experiment. You could even try giving the bottle at a time when you don't usually nurse. Good luck. I have nursed 3 babies and all eventually took bottles when I returned to work.

Oh I feel your pain and frustration. This is exactly what happened with us too. For 7 months!!! Fortunately, I make my own schedule at work and at the time, my husband was working from home, so we would literally meet up in parking lots so I could feed her! My poor husband was often left at home with a child that just would take a bottle, was hungry and crying all the time. We tried everything... until one day, she finally grabbed the bottle and chugged it down and would never breast feed again (which honestly, I was completely fine, even relieved about!). Good luck to you, and I'm sorry I don't have any advice that worked for us... let's just hope she makes the decision to take a bottle before mine did! lol

I feel your pain! My husband and I tried to have romantic weekend when our first child was 5 months old, and we had to cut it short and come home because our son would not eat! He had refused a bottle of pumped milk before bed & cried himself to sleep, then woken up at midnight and still refused. He stayed up until we got to my parents house and I nursed him. It had been almost 8 hours! For the longest time after that he refused to take a bottle at all. Finally I gave him some formula ice cold from the fridge, and he loved it. I couldn't believe a baby could be so hard headed.

Trust your gut on this one, and don't let him keep skipping a meal just because he's stubborn. Keep trying, even things that sound crazy, and eventually you'll find what works.

Try not to get discouraged, this happens to lots of babies! My daughter too, experienced nipple confusion for a couple of days while I was trying to prep her for bottle feeding when I had to go back to work. Having someone else try to feed her wasn't working, so I laid her down on her side on my lap (on the BF pillow) like I was going to BF her, but instead I slipped her the bottle (with breast milk), it took at minute, we might even have gone back and forth with my nipple and the bottle, but then she took it! it's sneaky, but it worked! Maybe try it? Also, If you are in the house, don't deny him his nursing, this will confuse him and lose his sense of your security. If you are going to try the "he'll eat when he is hungry" approach, save it for when you are not home. That way he will associate the bottle for times when you aren't there to BF him. Which is what you are striving for:)
Good luck and hang in there, it may take time, but it will work, you will see!

My baby also doesn't like the bottle much. She is in Daycare 2 days a week. The first week, she drank from the bottle just fine. She did not have as much as she would if she was nursing. She only drank a 1-2 ounces to satisfy her hunger. I didn't keep up with giving her a bottle over the weekend and the next week, had to go into daycare to feed her. I tried a variety of bottles for the next couple of weeks to see if she prefered one over the other. The playtex drop in worked well becuase you can actually ssquees the bag and force the milk in a bit until she suchs on her own. I have also found, through trial and error, that she will actually drink from a sippy cup. We use the take and toss kind because the milk kind of drips out of it. Also, my lactaction consultant assured me that the baby would eat what she needs to while away from you and will make up for it later. She told me to make sure i fed my baby good before dropping her off in the AM and right away when i pick her up in the evening. She is 4 months old now and still wakes up 1-2 times a night for feedings and likely will for a while. I would call the lactaction consultant at your local hospital or a le leche league for further advise.

At first, he didn't like the bottle at all but I figured out something...that I need to totally disappear for a while so he doesn't think my breasts are available! My hubby fed him and he was fine although he loves breastmilk over formula or even breastmilk in bottle.

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I feel your pain.... this may not make it any better for you, but this is what happened with us. Almost a same scenario--DH tried to give him 1 feeding per day (I actually left the house for about an hour, so the baby wouldn't think I was there). Baby wouldn't take the bottle at all. Tried a couple of nipples... Nothing worked.

I had to go back to work (1/2 days at first) at 2.5 months after the baby was born. The first few days were really rough on both the baby & dad (who is a SAHD).... But they survived, and after a couple hard days, they worked out a truce. One thing that did help was having a friend with baby experience (a nanny friend) come and give him some pointers, since I couldn't be there to help.

Good luck and hang in there--babies will not starve themselves, but they can be stubborn. :)

This may sound silly but I think it helps. Sit down with the bottle in your hand and explain to your baby that "we need to do this"!

Yes, someone other than you should do the bottle training, baby should associate only breastfeeding with you. It's not necessary to let him go hungry when the breast is available. Once you are at work and the breast is not available, he will likely be amenable to the bottle. Make sure the caregiver warms the nipple and smears a bit of breastmilk on it. It is also normal for a breastfed baby to eat less when mom is at work and nurse more when she is home. There's no need for you to make your baby go without food in order to get him used to a bottle, because you are available to him now.
When I went back to work with my last baby, the first day he took only one bottle of pumped milk, the next day he took two, and the third day, he took the three that would end up becoming his pattern.
good luck

What bottles have you tried? Have you tried different types of nipples? A lot of moms that have problems getting baby to take a bottle have had success with Tommee Tippee.

We had a similar issue when my daughter was quite a bit older. She would not take breast milk from anything - bottle, sippy cup, we even tried a regular cup. We tried all sorts of things until we finally called the lactation consultant we used when she was tiny.

Her advice - cut her off from the breast until she accepts the bottle. We tried that, and she took the bottle from me, and no one else. So we started again. It took a LONG time (almost 12 hours) before she took the bottle, and only when she would pick it up and drink by herself. But she did, and we were able to weather the period until she no longer needed the breastmilk.

I have posted several times about my experience with getting my daughter to take a bottle. I will tell you up front it was not easy. She was about 3 months old and did not have a choice as I was returning to work and Daddy was going to feed her pumped milk.

My first three days were hellish. I was putting in shortened work days because I was running home to end her "strikes" which were lasting over 6 hours. On the third day, Hubby took her to the doctor to confirm that there was nothing physically wrong with her. The doctor confirmed she was healthy and should have been able to drink from a bottle.

We were told not to indulged her "nonesense" and this has been the best advice ever.

We were told not to BF for the next 5 days (of course, this meant I had to pump at all the "normal" feeding times). She went 14 hours before taking her frst sip of pumped milk from a bottle. We had to take turns both trying to get her to take the bottle as well as leaving for a bit as the screaming was aweful and like nothing we had experienced up to that point. During the evening, the first sip was less than an ounce and she passed out in her crib - exhausted. Needless to say, she did not sleep long and was hungry very soon. We tried again with relatively the same success. It was a long process but eventually she started to take more and realized it was the same stuff. When I fed her, I wrapped her in Daddy's shirt or I wore one myself so I smelled less like me. It seemed to help.

Once she was taking the bottle like a champ, I had to keep her guessing when the breast was coming for the next week. After that we settled into a fairly happy routine, but this whole process took about 8 to 10 days.

IMO, you need to wait it out, but you HAVE to offer the bottle at the usual times.

I would advise using pumped milk. I think it gets more complicated if you add formula to the process. We did not use formula until about 9 or 10 months as that was when my milk started to wane since I was reducing the number of times I was pumping at work.

Do some tag teaming and get some extra support. I really wish my parents could have been there to help provides breaks during the screaming.

Good luck.
~C.

PS. With our second one, he was getting a bottle from Daddy after about 1 week of being home!!