DD won't take a bottle

[Punchy Kaby]

DD is 11 weeks and we have been trying to give her a bottle since she was 3 weeks old. We tried several different bottles and nipples. I went back to work when she was 8 weeks so since then we have really been trying and she will not take it. She bites the nipple, she does not suck it. The babysitter drips the milk into her mouth and she takes it that way but DH is not so patient and gets frustrated when DD is crying for hours because she is hungry.

What can I do?

[AustGirl]

I don't have any solutions, sorry. But

We gave Kynan his first EBM bottle a couple of weeks ago and he took to it straight away. The teat we use is so small that it won't leak if you tip it upside down, and it mimics a nipple really well. It's a Pigeon brand one. Not sure if you have them over there, but they're a Japanese brand.

[kssinca]

We have had some small success with feeding DS (5.5 months) from a cup. He took a bottle at 1 week but refuses to do so now. My parents don't have the patience to do the cup so today my mom bought a sippy cup. The spout only works if DS sucks on it so if he is not sucking, it does not drip into his mouth. The brand name is Nuby, but I don't know where she bought it.

[Punchy Kaby]

I have a nuby cup here, will try it today. Thanks!

[justthinkn]

Some people also do tube feeding with the tube taped on one of the caregiver's little fingers - but cup feeding definitely sounds easier, or at least a little simpler to set up

[Llyra]

I'll be honest with you-- some babies just never do. I started working again when DS was four months old, and he never would take a bottle. He would happily starve while he waited for me again. We tried a zillion different types of bottles, in every possible position and situation, and he never would take any of them. What we wound up having to do is to syringe his milk into him, slowly and arduously, until he was old enough to eat from a spoon, and then we started freezing the milk until it was slushy and spooning it into him.

Other non-bottle feeding options--
a medicine dropper
a tiny medicine cup
a supplemental-nurser (SNS) tube taped to a finger or pacifier

No matter which way you do it, though, it's painfully slow and requires a lot of patience to keep baby taking enough to stay hydrated and maintain adequate growth. What I wound up doing after awhile was reducing my hours to very part-time and taking the pay cut, in order to stay and nurse him, because his growth slowed down a lot.

[teachma]

Yes, my experience has been the same as the above poster-- neither of my first two children accepted bottles (and again, we tried all kinds of bottle/nipple combinations). I returned to work when ds was 14 wks. and when dd was 5 months old. Both of them completely reverse-cycled, nursing only during the hours I was home (4:30 pm until 7:30 am). During the day, they ate nothing but sometimes chewed on a bottle nipple for a fraction of an ounce here and there. Two different pediatricians (because I lived in a different state when dd was born) said this nursing pattern was fine for the child-- but it was very hard on me! Both of my children gained and thrived, and I survived. Eventually, ds learned to use a cup for whole milk but it was a LONG haul until then. Dd was not a fan of cup-drinking until past 2 yrs old but ate very liquidy foods to keep her hydrated in my absence. Best of luck to you.

[Punchy Kaby]

Yikes! Not good situations. I have to believe their is a solution for us, she is such an easy going baby. She took s bottle today from dh, a bottle we have tried before.