I'm currently breastfeeding my son at the moment but trying to wean him onto the bottle as I am extremely tired and cannot leave him for long with anyone as he won't take a bottle. Even if I expressed milk he wouldn't take it. He screams as if I'm giving him poison or something awful. He fights and kicks and struggles anything to do to avoid taking the milk. He really puts up a fight. My daughter took a bottle from 4 weeks and was no problem to wean off the breast at 3 months which was a personal choice. I am wanting to do the same and wean him at 3 months as well but he is having non of it. I don't want him to associate having the bottle as something bad so I'm looking for advise on how to get him to take it without him kicking up a fuss. He is 9 weeks old tomorrow and I have Avent bottles and size 1 teats. I also have a breast to bottle freebie which he won't take either. I tried him with SMA baby milk and have also tried him with the hugrier baby milk. He struggles no matter which bottle or milk I give him. Any advise on what to do and what to try would be great. I can't keep buying the tubs of formula such as aptamil/Cow & Gate etc as they are about £7 per pot which is very expensive to throw that money away.

All advice welcome. TIA.

Dawn,

congratulations on the birth of Daniel and welcome to the board. It's fairly quiet here but everyone is always welcome. I am afraid I haven't had any experience of bottle refusal but I will ask around elsewhere as I'm sure I know someone that would be able to help you.

xx

Katie

Hiya

I had a similar problem with my daughter who refused to take a bottle.  Someone recommended the mothercare breastflow bottles to me.  I think they are quite new on the market but have a much softer teat than other bottles and closer mimic the breast (have a double flow teat, short teat length and very soft).  We had more success with these than any other bottle we'd tried but she still wouldn't take it outright.   So every evening when she was having the last feed of the day I would sneak the bottle into her mouth mid feed and she'd take a couple of sucks before spitting it out.  A couple of days later I'd do it twice and slowly build up until she got the hang of it.  I chose the night feed because she was usually a bit dozy so I could get away with it a bit easier than other times of the day.

When it came to leaving my daughter at nursery she still wasn't brilliant at taking the bottle at home but we found that once she was there she took it no problem at all.  I guess she just came to realise it was that or nothing.

I wouldn't bother trying all the different formulas if your LO won't even take expressed milk as its clearly not the taste putting him off.

Good luck

BoT

Hi Dawn,

I had problems BF & FF my DD as she just had an awful latch and wasn't much of a feeder. However,I did find that she preferred MAM teats. They are flatter and a softer rubber and not as long as other teats.

Worth a try. I'd also save your money on buying tubs of formula that your DS is refusing. You may as well try persevering with expressed BM as at least this is not costing you anything.

You have already probably tried this but have you tried anybody else feeding him but yourself as he may be able to smell your milk?

Good luck hun. x

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