5 Week Old Refusing Bottle

Hi M., I found that the AVENT bottles worked well because the nipple is wide like a women's breast. My son liked them and we used them together with breastfeeding . Good luck!! Jenny

Hi Meredith,

My husband and I experimented with several types and I am still exclusively breastfeeding.

The best I found was Playtex ~ getting started set. It is the closest to the breast for a nipple. My son gets an occasional bottle and these are in my opinion, the best!

Hope this helps!

Hi, Congratulations that the breastfeeding works!
I am sorry for saying this, but I would recommend you to focus on the breastfeeding and don't bother about the bottle for now. I know it feels that you have no flexibility but that is how it is in the beginning. Try to enjoy it, it will go so fast, even if it feels like a very long time now, it will go by like that!
Sit down and breastfeed and enjoy it, you can go out and about later on!
There is also a risk that your son will lose interest in the breast if you start with the bottle, so if you want to keep breastfeeding, focus on that!
Good luck!
A.

If you're baby were 6 months old, I would be giving different advice--but he's only 5 weeks old. If he won't take the bottle then that is a good sign that he's not ready for it. Stick with breastfeeding and give him some time. I know it is hard to be "tethered" to the baby every second, but really the time that you are stuck with breastfeeding goes by SO fast. Even if he ONLY breastfed for another 6 months....6 months out of your entire life is really not that long.

Congrats on your new bundle of joy! It is such an exciting time!

As for bottles, we used Avent bottles. It was the first we tried and my son just took onto them. However, now with all of the hype about the plastics in bottles, I would suggest trying the Born Free, Playtex drop ins or Dr. Brown's. These do not have the bad BPA plastic in them. I would definitely try one of those. I have heard that it sometimes takes more than 10 different nipples to finally find one that a baby will take, so good luck!

Also, I would just continue to try the bottle daily. I remember my pediatrician saying that it may take a while to transition from breast to bottle. It may take a long time, but he should catch on at some point!

Good luck!

You might consider the playtex nurser. The nipple is shaped more like mother's breast.

However, babies make up their own mind about these things, and I wish you luck. I had 5 children, all grown now, and 1 refused a bottle under any circumstances. In addition, a friend of mine with a 1 year old ran in to the same thing. When I cared for her baby, he would old take the bottle to stave off hunger and then would hold out til his mother nursed him.

Keep trying, and good luck.

Our lactation specialist recommended BreastFlow - by Learning Curve. It worked, they have a double nipple that acts like a nipple to the baby... after we went to formula - we switched to Advent and it was all fine.

I was taught that the breastfeeding mother should never introduce the bottle that it creates nipple confusion and the baby is more likely to reject the bottle.
Basically, you have to leave the house and the baby has to get very hungry and frustrated a few times and then learn to take it from Daddy. It is not fun, but it usually eventually works.
Good luck!

The brand of bottle that we use and our daughter loves is the Avent. when you feed him make sure that he has a burp cloth that has your sent on it. take it and sleep with it for a night and then try to give it with him when you give him the bottle.

Hi M.!

My best advice is to introduce the bottle at night when he is the most sleepy and least likely to notice, maybe waking him up 5 minutes before he is normally up. I had my husband do it, because I had heard babies can smell the milk on you if you are nearby, and of course want it on tap. You may also try a friend or family member giving it to him. I think it took us about a week of trying before my daughter took a bottle, and she refused to take a bottle from me until she was close to a year.

As for bottle brands, we tried Avent and Nuk (both received as gifts) but our Pedi reccommended Dr. Brown's since I was nursing and she had spit-up issues, and she loved those.

I think this is the perfect time to introduce a bottle, before he gets too set in his ways with the boob. And you need to be able to feel like a person aside from being a mommy, even if it's only for an hour once per week to go grocery shopping! Bleh to people who say you are rushing the process, of course you'll savor his time as an infant. You do what feels right for you.

Good Luck!

My son (now 5 years old) and my daughter (now 2 years old) were the exact same way. I just kept trying different nipples on different bottles and eventually they each took. It'll take some searching for differnt types of nipples and may cost a little bit to purchase them, but eventually, it should work. Good luck! :)

Hi M., I had the the same thing happen to me with my daughter, It seems nursing a baby will create an acquired taste among nursing babies, they know the difference, and they know who has the milk. So give the bottle to the one who has not got the "milk" and perhaps put sweetwater or a diluted juice in it, let the father first or friend give the bottle, baby will realize the that mommy is not able to nurse rite now. They are very smart. Trust that. Dian.

Try only having your husband give the bottle with the introduction. Our son refused breastmilk out of the bottle no matter what we tried, we ended up doing only formula in the bottle when my husband is home with him, otherwise I breastfeed him. Our son has always known that breastmilk comes from mommy and that's the only way he'll take it. He's now 9 months old and still won't do breastmilk out of a bottle. I wish I could give you more advice - but I was in the same boat.

As to bottles - We use Born Free bottles. Avent bottles are also really nice.

Hi Meredith, it took a while for the bottle to "take" too. We experimented with different types of nipples and made sure I was certainly not in the room, and ideally out of the apartment while my husband tried. At first my husband held him differently than he would if he was nursing. I read about someone who could only get their baby to take a bottle of they placed her in a bouncy seat and gave the bottle from behind. so it may take a bit of experimentation. good luck!

What's the rush, Meredith? He's only five weeks old. Flexibility in your schedule? Are you going back to work right now? This is a once in a lifetime experience. The baby's only going to be an infant for a very short period of time. Give him the time he deserves to build a close bond with you. He'll be ready for the bottle soon enough. Slow things down a bit.

I have two kids and with both returned to work at 3 mos but exclusively breastfed until they started solids, so I have been through this. My daughter was reluctant to take a bottle when we first introduced it - probably around 5 weeks. She refused the bottle for a few nights, but she did eventually take it. We offered it at the same time every night, my husband was the one that wielded the bottle, it had to be really warm, and she had to be really hungry. The la leche league has plenty of stories of babies who refuse bottles and so simply wait until mom gets home to nurse- like for an 8 hour work day! So, if our method of simply making it routine, and waiting for the baby to decide to participate doesn't work, you could simply prepare bottles and leave your caregiver (husband, babysitter, relative) with the baby and wait and see... Chances are very good the baby and caregiver would be fine. The baby won't starve itself. They LOVE milk. With my kids, I noticed that they always preferred their milk directly from the source, and so maybe you just won't be able to get your baby to take the bottle when he knows you are around, but it won't be a problem when you aren't...

Bottles: We used Avent and then switched to BornFree. Because your baby is breastfed, you should probably get the 1-2 hole bottles so that speed of milk isn't the issue.

Congratulations on your new baby boy! I exclusively breastfed my daughter until about 7 weeks, then introduced the bottle. I had heard lots of recommendations about the Playtex Drop-Ins system, so we went with that to start with. She seemed to do fine transitioning, but when we tried other bottles like Soothies and others (I can't remember the other brands) she rejected them and wouldn't drink from them at all. I think the Drop-Ins were much easier for her going from the breast because 1) the nipples supposedly resemble the breast, and 2) the drop-ins allow the baby to drain the milk without air going into their mouths (the liners collapse as the baby drinks). You might just want to give it a try to see if it works with your son (you would want to start with the slow flow nipple so the flow resembles that of when nursing - we used the silicone ones).

Off topic: I've never seen anyone with their name spelled the same as mine (I've only seen "Meredith" or other variations like that)! Very cool :)

Best of luck with the bottle transitioning!

I have had good luck with using non-breastfeeding positions for bottle feeding. Holding the baby out away from your body, hand under the head and body down your fore-arm, with your elbow resting on your thigh. I like the Dr. Brown's bottles, especially because Babys R Us carries them in glass which removes exposure to thalates that are found in many plastic bottles. Dr. Brown's has a great venting system that helps reduce gas. In my experience mom's eften cannot bottle feed initially. Also, you may want to try feeding him when he is not super hungry, that reduces the hysteria factor. The cool thing about using breast milk in a bottle is that you can fix the bottle after a feed, put it in your pocket and let it warm up to body temp without worrying that it will go bad because you can leave breastmilk at room temp for _hours_. Hang in there and keep trying, your timing on this is really perfect.