teaching older babies to BF..how old is too old?

Mine was also 16 weeks before she could nurse exclusively.

I remember someone on this board had one who didn't nurse til 6 months.

Perhaps she might be able to get him to just nurse to sleep or at night. I don't know how realistic it is to think she could replace all his bottle feeds with nursing at this point though. A friend of mine is having a tough time with her 9 mo old just trying to wean him off one bottle a day that just became a habit. I'd say nothing is impossible though, depends on the baby and how persistent mom can be. She's got nothing to lose by trying. Although I know the fear of disappointment again is pretty tough to deal with.

Assuming he doesn't know what to do with a nipple, I'd encourage her to make it play at the start. Get topless and just lay down with him and let him nuzzle her. At 4 mo, my dd would suck my nipple, spit it out, roll over, roll back, laugh, repeat .... she was playing, no expectations that she had to nurse.... Once she was relaxed and comfortable (day... week...) then express some milk onto the nipple and let baby lick it off. See how it goes.

I gotta say though my nearly 9 month olds fave thing at the moment is to practice her pincer grip on my nipple so it might be rather frustrating for mom.