Can a die-hard breast feeder successfully bottle feed also?

[ladylittlebird]

I am attempting to get my 3 month old to accept a bottle. I pump fresh milk and give it to her while warm but I can't stand forcing it into her mouth. She rejects it every time. OJ is my 4th child.  I was unsuccessful at getting the other 3 to take the bottle. I just want a date night with my husband. Any advise?

[kathymuggle]

Try having DH give her a bottle when you are not around.  If that works, try getting a friend to do it - and if that is successful, you might be able to go on a date night.  Lots of babies will take a bottle from another person but won't from their mom (who has the lovely breasts they prefer right there).

Play around with different bottle nipples.  Some babies prefer one type to another.  

How about cup feeding (although that may be a bit of work for a sitter….)

Good luck, mama.

[phathui5]

You can work around it for a date. Arrive at your friend's house, nurse her. Leave. Arrive back in three hours, nurse again.

[JudiAU]

Dont give them yourself, ever. Play around with bottle nipples. 

[MichelleZB]

Lol, I was not able to get my son to take a bottle, and neither was my husband! It depends on the kid, I guess.

He's 13 months now and drinks a sippy cup and eats solids, and I can leave him for 4 hours or a little more. So this too shall pass!

As for a date night, have you considered a "staycation"? Hire a babysitter to come to the house and play with the kids, but hole up with a movie in your room with the husband. You'll still be in the house to nurse the baby on demand.

[Quinalla]

Definitely try having someone else give the bottle, preferably while you are out of the house (just take a short walk or go to somewhere nearby with a cell phone handy so you can come back quickly if it doesn't work out). Some BF babies just won't accept a substitute if Mom is there or nearby. With my DD, it also helped to hold her in an upright sitting position, I did it with her sitting on my lap facing away, and to do what I could to encourage her to latch onto the bottle nipple like she would a breast, so I would brush her nose/cheek with the nipple to encourage a nice wide open mouth when she was still little. I was lucky she would take a bottle from me when she was hungry, but she was slow at it and would pop off of the bottle often. And different nipples can make all the difference, so if you have different kinds around definitely try them. And if a babysitter is willing, cup feeding sometimes work better, but it is slow.

[EchoSoul]

Also, I've read you should be out of the room entirely, if not out of the HOUSE when someone else gives your baby the bottle for the first time. I've read breast fed babies typically accept latex nipples better, if you're not having any luck with silicone... I've also read you can skip the bottles entirely if you're not having much luck getting the baby to take ANY. You can move straight to a training cup. Breast-fed babies typically take straw cups better(my son's 21 months old, and played around with a straw cup - I think it's Nuby's, it has a soft, silicone straw with a valve he has to compress and suction the liquid out with). We also have a training cup by Avent that works and looks a lot like an adult cup, but has an insert which has to be pushed down with his lip in order to let liquid trickle.

[phathui5]

This is from Jack Newman's website:

Quote:

Why not an open cup? It is true that some exclusively breastfed babies will not take a bottle by 2 or 3 months of age. Most, who have not taken a bottle, and even some who once did accept a bottle will not take one by the time they are 4 or 5 months of age. This is no tragedy, and there is no reason to give a bottle early so that the baby knows how. If your baby is refusing to take a bottle, do not try to force him; you and he may become very frustrated and there is just no need to go through all this. If the baby is at least 6 months of age when you start back at outside work, the baby quite simply does not need to take a bottle. If he is even 3 or 4 months, he does not need to take a bottle. He can be fed liquids or solids off a spoon and by 6 months of age he can be taking enough so that he will not be hungry during the day.

[ladylittlebird]

I love these reaffirming words. Thank you. I am not going to give the bottle another thought. I feel like I am defiling her when push a plastic nipple into her mouth that she clearly doesn't want. Can't wait to read more from Jack Newman's site. Thanks again.

[oneoffour]

My daughter never took a bottle despite trying all kinds of tricks. At five months she would drink out of a sippy cup with the plug thing pulled out. It was kind of messy but allowed her to be fed at daycare and for the occasional outing. Soon after she drank from a Nuby straw cup.

[Greenlea]

I introduce the bottle at 2 weeks, mainly because with DS1 & 2 I had to go back to work and baby didn't have a choice but to take a bottle. And only DH or someone else would give them the bottle, never me (at first). However, I ran out of my freezer stash pretty quickly and when I pumped at work I could only get enough for next day's meals. So yeah, our date nights didn't go much past 2 hrs as DS2 did not get formula like DS1 did. Deciding not to give formula to DS2 however, meant he was with me all.the.time. Everywhere I went, I had to bring him in case he wanted to nurse. As hard as that is, I do plan on doing the same with baby #3 due in April.