After 9 days of holiday nursing, baby refused bottle this week!

[mamadechiquita]

Hi,

Has this ever happened to others out there? I work out of the home 40 hours while my now almost 5 month old stays home with dad. She took to the bottle (of EBM) when I first went back to work at 3 months but after 9 days of full-time AP including BF on cue she is refusing dad's bottles...simply clamping her cute little mouth shut. This whole week back to work after the holidays she has waited to eat until I get home.

In hindsight should I have continued pumping on the days off and having dad feed? When (if???) we get her to take the bottle again should we just keep with the routine (daytime bottle of EBM and nightime nursing in bed with mama)?

[JudiAU]

We used to call this the "bitter baby" when DS would do it to SAHD. He would adjust eventually.

[Ellien C]

No advice, but I want you to know you have my sympathy. You're doing a fantastic job with the nursing and pumping!

[emilysmama]

Originally Posted by mamadechiquita 

In hindsight should I have continued pumping on the days off and having dad feed? When (if???) we get her to take the bottle again should we just keep with the routine (daytime bottle of EBM and nightime nursing in bed with mama)?

I doubt it would have helped to have had dad feed during the holidays.

My dd never did take the bottle, but I taught daycare to feed dd with a cup, so I thought I was fine.

But when my dd was just a little bit older than your child's age and had been in daycare a few months, she started refusing the expressed milk from the daycare provider.  Never cried, in spite of the fact that I was often at work for 15 hours straight.  Was just her cheerful self all day in daycare (and then at home when daddy picked her up and took care of the two them while I continued to work late into the night).  She just waited until I got home, and then she nursed at night.  I am fortunate enough to be a very sound sleeper, and nursed in the sidelying position.  I slept through the whole thing each night, but I have a vague memory of lots of nursing going on while I slept.  So dd reverse cycled herself.  There was no need to worry about dd, because she still had plenty of wet diapers, and she gained weight just fine. 

Dd didn't have any interest in the gallons of milk that I pumped until she was about 12 months old, when she started to think it would be fun to chug down large quantities of breastmilk from a cup again.  By that time, I was still pumping, but the volume pumped had slowed down considerably.  The irony of throwing away three freezers full of expired milk just a few months before the renewed interest in expressed milk was not amusing to me.

Dd was a strong nurser until she weaned herself at age 3. 

The main challenge is to reassure daycare provider (in your case dad) not to worry.  Simply instruct him to keep offering the milk to her once every two hours, but not to force feed, and not to stress if refused. 

To minimize the amount of unused milk that gets thrown away, I'd also suggest that the milk be offered in smaller quantities (like in one ounce increments, instead of the usual 2 ounce increments) until your child gets back to drinking for dad predictably.