Hi Everyone,
I have been lucky to be able to take my daughter to work with me. I nurse her & we started introducing the bottle when she was 8wks old. She absolutely refuses to take it. We tried different nipples, had different people try to give it to her at different times of day, gave it to her immediately after pumping, when the milk was cold, etc. She went 10hrs without eating, 8hrs the next day and 8hrs the next day, etc. & simply will not take a bottle but we keep trying on a regular schedule anyway.
When she became 6months old, she started daycare 2x/wk. I was hoping that the sitter might have more luck but so far she hasn't. So, we are trying the sippy cup now but that does not seem to be going well. My daughter eats a few tbsp of baby oatmeal and a veggie at lunch time and again at dinner. She seems to like the solid foods as long as she can put the spoon in her mouth herself. I asked the sitter to mix the oatmeal with breast milk hoping that will provide fluids while I'm away. Last week she refused to eat the solids too.
At this point I am starting to get a little desperate. I hate the idea of my daughter not eating for 6 hrs while I'm at work (not to mention that I really should be working 8hrs). I also really need to be able to be away from her for an all day conference at the end of March. My Dr told me to give up and focus on the sippy cup but she seems just as willfully opposed to that. I'm lucky to have a flexible work schedule but really feel that this problem is making it hard to get my work done. I'd appreciate suggestions and advice!
I have a 7 month old daughter and had the exact same problem. Everyone told me to keep trying everything which was good advice, but one mom on the site recommended I try using a nuk nipple. My daughter occasionally uses a nuk pacifer and the familiarity seemed to work for her. She started taking her bottle almost immediately. Hope this helps!
We had a lot of trouble getting our babies to take bottles too. With both of them we finally had luck with a latex Nuk standard sized nipple (that can go on any standard bottle). After months of struggling with both of them, this is what worked. (We tried every bottle and nipple on the market for both of them.) It worked for them when we finally got their reflux under control with Prilosec. My son never spit up, but was very uncomfortable and refused to eat...all he wanted was to nurse. You might want to have your daughter checked to see if there's a reason she's not eating, other than the bottle itself. Pay attention to her behavior....Is she arching her back, waking at night, coughing, fussy?....there might be something making her too uncomfortable to eat.
Good luck. I understand how frustrating feeding issues can be.
Ugh, I can completely sympathize with you. Neither of my boys ever took a bottle--I know the anxiety it brings! I know a handful of other moms who had to leave their babies in daycare that would never eat. These babies nursed like crazy during the night to make up for it!
We went straight to the sippy cup with both boys. It took a while, and we had to experiment with all three of my kids. The best ones for us were the Gerber FunGrips. The ones for babies have handles and a soft spout, which was even better. All three of my kids had success with this cup.
Good luck!
Hi. I don't know if my story will help but you may want to explore seeing a feeding specialist who works with infants.
My daughter had failure to thrive as a result of what the Dr's believed was reflux. Every week the Dr's switched her formula,finally I exclusive breast feed.
At 5 months, I attempted to wean her unsuccessfully . My daughter was seen by a feeding specialist per her Dr's recommendation.
I was told, there is a window of opportunity to learn how to suckle on a bottle vs. breast feed. My daughter was unable to switch or learn to use a bottle but did learn to use a sippy cup with the help and advise of the feeding specialist. Needless to say, I continued to breast feed until 9 months as well.
Good Luck.
S.
Your story sounds exactly like mine. My daughter is now 15 months old but never fully accepted a bottle without any complaints until she was about 9 months old. She started daycare full time around 4 months old but I finally broke down (mostly because of this issue) after many months and fortunately because of my flexible work schedule, now only bring her to daycare 3 days/week. And, I used to only drop her off for 6-7 hours a day because I knew she was famished after that many hours only consuming 1-1.5 ounces. The good news is that your daughter will probably move completely to sippy cups earlier than most babies. My daughter was completely on sippies by 9-10 months (shortly after she decided that bottles were okay too), and after we made the switch, we never turned back to the bottles. But, to be honest, we started working on sippy and straw cups around 5 months old but she had a lot of difficulty with the super fast flow in comparison to the breast. Practice with water so that you don't waste too much breastmilk. I've written a lot about the Playtex Nurser system bottles to other moms on the site. (You can check out what I've written about those bottles...) Those are truly the only bottles that we had ANY luck with, and they were recommended to us by our lactation consultant. (BTW, my daughter used Nuk pacifiers, but she would not accept bottle nipples of the same shape.) Also, the daycare teachers used to spoon feed my daughter 2-3 ounces of breastmilk mixed with about 1 Tbsp of cereal to thicken slightly on days that she would totally refuse bottles. She also became fairly proficient with drinking the thickened milk from a small dixie cup that the teacher would hold up to her mouth for her to sip slowly from (just fill 0.5-1 ounce at a time to minimize the mess). Babies just know that getting their milk directly from the source is best for them! Good luck. I know it's rough...I experienced it!
My son didn't like sippy cups but will drink out of a cup with a straw or even just a regular cup.
So sorry for the difficulty! I warmed the nipples that i used before giving the milk and used advent nipples with born free bottles. They were the only ones that seemed to work. Every baby is different though. And my son never took the bottle well. Good luck!!
I agree with the women below...if she uses any kind of pacifier, see if they make a comparable bottle. Had I seen that Nuk made a bottle, I would have tried that as that is the binky he uses. My son also refused the bottle when I started back to work and would go long stretches without eating, which caused me major anxiety. I bought several different types of bottles (avent, adiri, etc.) and one day saw an online commericial for Breastflow bottles. He actually didn't spit it out or refuse it right away-and only a week or two later had not issues with the bottle at all. If you are going to make the move to a sippy cup, I would suggest one with a straw. (i will skip the long story with my son and just tell you they are better for them) Playtex sport insulated is the best one I found that doesn't leak from the lid and is easy to clean and you can buy replacement straws online at teebop.com. I moved my first son off the bottle at one year straight to these with no weaning problems and he loved them. We still use them once in a while for a long car ride. Good luck!!!!
try a sippy cup. kids know what they are ready for, sometimes before us.
I wish I could offer advice, but I only have sympathy. My youngest was the same and nothing worked: it was breast or starve. At around 8 months she finally started taking a sippy cup to my great relief, but it was a long haul.
Hi,
Wow that is alot to have on your plate.
My son refused a bottle until he was 10 months old. But he was the second and somehow between sippy cups and straws he managed. I think he finally got the hang of the bottle when I was not around for a day or two to feed him. Maybe your conference will do the trick.
We played a lot of games with the cups, straws and bottles and let the meal time take a long long time. I remember the floor was always wet. I put breast milk on the outside of the nipples and sippy cups to encourge him to explore.
And I fed him lots of runny foods- applesause, spinach, stuff I could make in the blender and control how mushy or runny it would be.
Its hard now, but her determination will came in handy later on.
good luck!
M.
I went through the same thing with my daughter. Somewhere between 2 and 3 months she stopped taking a bottle and we were inconsistent with it since I was nursing her. She is now 7 1/2 months old. A few months ago we started to tackle this issue - I also am lucky enough to be able to be home with her and nurse her exclusively. So we just kept offering her the bottle everyday for a couple of weeks and she wouldn't take anything. Then one day she went on a nursing strike - have no idea why and wouldn't eat - well I thought that would be a good time to try to get her to take a bottle since she would be so hungry after 4 1/2 hours or so and sure enough she did. I think the main thing is that if a baby is hungry enough they will take it and they won't starve. I know it feels mean but a baby will eventually eat. The bottles though that worked best for us is the playtex nurser - the one with the liners. Its a pain but it also worked for my sister-in-law whose baby went through the same thing. One my baby took the bottle that day I still didn't end up being so conistent with it because I also give her a sippy cup with water at her meals. I use the straw sippy cups and those work great. Now that she is old though she seems to be more inclined to take a bottle when I do offer one. I think its just takes time. Hope this helps!
So is she not drinking anything right now? I'm a little confused...I'm also concerned that your dr. told you to give up on something that's so important. So she's not getting any formula/fluids? And now she's refusing solids?
I would be concerned because at 6 mos old, most babies are quite ravenous and want to eat anything in sight due to the rapid growth spurts. Unless I read this wrong or do not understand, I'm assuming she's not eating or drinking much?
Hopefully it's just a short phase. There were small periods of time when my son would only eat/drink small amounts throughout the day, but if this continues, I'd definitely get a second opinion.
Good luck!!!
Lynsey
