Help!!!! - Allen Park,MI

I had the same issue and when it came time for my son to go to daycare he still wouldn;t take the bottle. But the human body, mind, and it's instincts are amazing things. When he finally got hungry enough he learned how to bet the milk out of the bottle and he was able to feed form me when I got home to breastfeed him. Don;t worrry she will adapt because that's what are bodies tell us to do we forget that babies know how to adapt also because they are so small and WE THINK they don;t know much.

My daughter did this same thing for a while; I had to go back to work when she was only 6 weeks old :(. We tried a ton of different types of bottles and the one that worked for us (still the only one she'll take) is the BreastFlow by First Years. It simulates a letdown so there's less chance of nipple confusion.

As an aside: please do not attempt "behavior modification" on an 8 week old infant! She's crying because she's in need of something, not because she's manipulating you. But you know that, or else you wouldn't be posting here. ;)

I Have been through this three times, I have read all the responses on here and agree with most of them. Where do you work? Is it possible for someone to bring baby to your work or for you to leave during lunch? Fortuantley when my kids were going through this, I worked very clost to home and could come home and nurse. Trying for 10 minutes at a time is very smart. If she gets too frustrated, she wont try it at all!! I remember sitting in the driveway crying because it DID work better when I was no where near. I used to be very active in advocating for breastfeeding mothers...I still support as much as I can, but now that my kids are older, I dont know as many Mom's with young babies. Good Luck!! Please let us know about your progress. Remember also, Calm parents equals calm baby...(best advice I ever got) You will see that baby will sense the lack of frustration if everyone is calm during this transistion....try it with soft music, no one else in room, especially you. And most of all, please try not to worry, your daughter will not starve, because you and husband are clearly very good parents and doing what you can to make this easy for all of you!!

Please let me know if I can help in anyway!

Shelly

You might want to try giving her the bottle when she is not at home, and YOU are no where around.

If she can't smell you at all she might be more willing to take a bottle when she's hungry.

However, don't worry if she refuses to take a bottle. A LOT of babies will wait all day long for Mommy to feed them. You might have to give up a few hours in your evenings to nurse her (Marathon nursing) but she will be fine. You can also try to go to the daycare on your lunch break to nurse her.

Oh, I feel your frustration. Reading your post reminded me what we went through when my daughter was that age. I tried EVERYTHING to try to get her to take a bottle... even the starvation method, which was absolutely horrible! People told me she would eventually eat if she got hungry enough. Well, we held out for about 6-8 hours only offering her the bottle (with every kind of nipple available), and did she end up taking the bottle then? NO!! And we just couldn't keep doing that, so gave in! It did seem like my daughter couldn't grasp how to suck on the bottle as she was used to breastfeeding. I swear we bought stock in every bottle system out there, none of it worked! So, I had to go back to work (however my schedule is flexible to an extent), and my husband worked from home, so we arranged our schedules so he could bring my daughter to me (or meet in a parking lot somewhere), I fed her, etc. It was TOUGH!! At almost 7 months to the day, I again offered her a bottle (which I continued to try to get her to take all along), and she grabbed that bottle and just started chugging it. She completely refused breastfeeding after that day (oh what a relief!), like a switch got flipped! She is 3 now and that period of time seems like such a distant one. We made it through, and I'm sure you guys will to! Thankfully (and sadly) kids change soooo quickly...Good luck to you and know that this too will pass...

Hi M. -

I had the same issue with my daughter 11 years ago at about the same age. She took a bottle right after she was born but we didn't stay with so when I was ready to return to my golf league, she refused the bottle. We followed our pediatrician's advice.

By feeding her after 10 minutes of fussing, she is learning that she can fuss and get what she wants. You have to let her cry untill she takes the bottle, you can't give in. Then, once she does take it, give her one consistently after that.

Have your husband or someone else who can listen to her cry stay with her for a half a day or whole day if that's what it takes. She will not let herself go hungry and will eventually take the bottle.

I left my husband and daughter on a saturday with a supply of bottles and milk and went shopping. Didn't have anything in particular to shop for - just went to the mall and looked around to get out of the house (i.e. away from her crying), and take my mind off what was happening without me. He walked her around, outside, whatever he could do when she was really worked up. He called me 2 or 3 hours later and said she took it and I could come home. He gave her a bottle everyday after that and a few weeks later I had my mom give her one to make sure she would take it from someone else.

We used Avent because they were the only one more like the breast. I'm sure lots of things have changed since then.

Like all behavior modification in children (or adults!! LOL), consistency is key.

Hang in there!

K.

First of all, good for you for breastfeeding. Second of all, I feel your pain, my daughter went through the very same thing. She is now almost 8 months old and still only takes enough from the bottle to get her through the day. I also go over and nurse her at lunch, which gives me peace of mind.

We tried every bottle and nipple on the market without much success, down to the Adiri nurser. She does pretty well with Avent Level 2 nipples now but she didn't at 8 weeks old. All you can do is keep trying and be upfront with the daycare staff, this likely isn't new to them. Also, be prepared for less sleep at night as your daughter "makes up" for missed meals and mommy time. Good luck to you!

You can try using a regular nipple and put it on a small 2 oz plastic bottle. Let her play around with it when she IS NOT hungry. Once she gets comfortable putting the nipple in her mouth, put a 1/4 to 1/2 ounce of breastmilk in it. Let her discover that it is a feeding method.
Offer the bottle a half an hour before you expect her to get hungry. Once she's hungry the frustration of that makes it almost impossible to learn this new feeding method. You can also try offering it to her while walking around and she's facing outward while you jiggle and sway back and forth. Good luck, S.

I had the same problem with my son. We had to try every bottle. AND the one thing we found was that he liked the bottle SUPER warm - almost hot - so we put the bottle through 2 cycles on the bottle warmer and he was willing to take it. Once he started we did one bottle a day until I returned to work. He still has days where he refuses bottles, but for the most part takes them OK. Good luck and I hope you find something that works for your daughter.

We had a similar challenge with our daughter so I can greatly sympathize with you and your husband! It is so frustrating wasting all that pumped breast milk when they won't take it! I remember we even tried feeding her expressed milk from a clean medicine dropper and a spoon because we were so desperate to get her to eat!

What finally worked for my daycare provider was to give her the bottle when she was in her bouncy seat, not being held by anyone. I liked the other suggestion to give her a bottle to explore when it is empty; it sounds like that could help.

A friendly heads up: I used to feed my daughter at the daycare provider's before I went to work. My daughter started "holding out" for me to feed her by taking less and less from the bottle or none at all at daycare. Eventually, I would have to go feed her on my lunch hour and before we left for home in the evening because she just stopped taking bottles. Something to be aware of. (At that point, I did quit working to stay home full-time because we had budgeted for it and I was only working part time anyway.)

Best wishes and hang in there! Please post an update for us later! L.

I had the same issue with my son 2 years ago with transitioning to a bottle. I tried every bottle out there. Then I found the Breastflow bottle by Learning curve and it was the only one that Sean took with no issues. I had to be out of the room for the first week too but then it was fine for me to be in the room when he was bottled feed. My lacation specialist told me you need to find a nipple on the bottle that best matches your nipple. This one seemed to work for my little guy.

Here is a link to check out the bottle:

http://www.learningcurve.com/breastflow

You can get this bottle at Babies 'R' Us or online.
It was the best for my Sean! Good Luck!!!
B.

Don't panic! Rest assured, she will not allow herself to go hungry. Follow the other's advice by being nowhere around her, and keep on trying the nipples, doing all of the tricks you have done before, and one will work. You can also try to open her mouth by putting your finger on her chin and holding it down a little, so the shape of the nipple will go into her mouth a little easier, and then she can start to suck and get the milk. If you are planning to feed her breastmilk, keep on pumping now, so you will have extra, it really does come in handy for those days when the milk just doesn't seem to flow enough. She will get it. Some babies just take longer than others. Hang in there, mama!

Hi M.
It's been a long time since i've breast fed my children but i had a similar situation when my son was at this age. My suggestion is to allow someone else to try feeding her. I believe being close to you is he actual problem, not the bottles themselves. If you can have your husband partake in the feeding a little more this would not only be bonding for the two of them but this will also beneficial for you. Right now you're all she knows. Not being cruel but you may have to go away for a few hours at a time. She'll 'learn' that there's other ways of feeding outside of the breast. I'm sure this is really challenging but just hang in there. It gets better with time.

Can you delay your return to work a few weeks?

A friend's babysitter fed her son by giving him little sips from a cup. There's a trick to it so you don't dump milk all over the baby but I couldn't tell you exactly what.

Oh man I went through this yikes! Thank gosh I work only weekends. She would go 9hrs with out eating we tried every kind of bottle to. I even bought the expensive adiri bottle yeah that looks like the breast and it is the worst leaky bottle that was $13 yikes. Well she is 18 mnths and never took a bottle my friends baby was over and she tried sucking it and looked at me and said nono yucky lol. I hope ur baby takes it for u keep us updated!

This is something that's trial and error. You have to figure out what bottles work and like the previous poster said you can't be anywhere near her. If she can smell you it will make her more resistant. I mean from her logic why take the bottle when the breast is right there.

Hi M.,

I had the same problem and the same fears your are having. We tried several different bottles with my husband doing all the feeding and nothing worked. Finally I bought a glass Born Free bottle and decided to try feeding my son myself and it worked. He fussed for a couple of minutes but I just held him in the same position as I would if I were breastfeeding and he finally relaxed and took it. I try to give him one bottle each day to keep him familiar with the process before I return to work. Best of luck. I know what a scary feeling it is. Hang in there and know that your baby will not starve.

i dont know from experience but i have heard that when you are trying this YOU cannot be in the room at all, maybe on the other side of the house even. she cant know you are an option.

Your daughter sounds just like my son--and he never really did take to a bottle. I went back to work part-time when he was 4 months old, but I'm a nurse so if I was working a 12 hour shift I might be gone from the house for 13 1/2-14 hours. NOBODY could give him a bottle if I was anywhere in the house (and he knew!), but when I went to work he would go a ridiculously long time before he would act hungry, then he would take 2 or 3 ounces of breastmilk from a bottle. That's it--no crying or fussing, but he'd just take enough to take the edge off his hunger if I wasn't there. As soon as I got home from work, he'd nurse like a fiend. Once I was gone for 14 hours, and he took a total of 4 ounces (in 2 feedings) the whole time I was gone. I didn't worry about it too much since I was only working 1 or 2 days a week, and there was plenty of pumped milk available if he wanted it. He started solids at 6 months and started taking juice from a cup, and then things got better. It was amazing how long he would hold out if I wasn't there. He never suffered any ill effects, though. Good luck to you!