Breastfeeding to Bottle Feeding... - Denton,TX

The little guy's only 9 weeks old! First, I would advocate patience. If all he will take right now is his mama, then maybe that's how it is for right now. As he gets a little older, he'll be more open to other possibilities.

Next, see if he'll take the bottle when you are not home. My sister had this challenge with my nephew. If she was anywhere in the house, he would know it and would NOT take a bottle. Once she was physically gone from the house, he would relent and let my brother-in-law feed him. Some babies just know what they like! :-)

Good luck...hope this helps!

M.

Well, of course. Babies would MUCH rather have a snuggly mama boob than a stupid bottle!!!!!!

Most people recommend that YOU never give a bottle - only someone else like hubby or grandma until he gets older. When he smells you he wants YOU.

Have your hubby introduce the bottle when you are NOT home. If he can not eat then you freak out and he gets what he wants. If you are not there then he will eat from hubby - eventually. babies won't generally starve themselves once they know they only have one choice.

Not sure how much skin-to-skin contact your son has had with his hubby. But I had some breastfeeding issues so we had to supplement and then wean early. The ped told both me and my hubby to feed our daughter shirtless with baby wearing only a diaper. That way she could feel our skin and smell us and it would instantly calm her down. So have your hubby take off his shirt and offer the bottle. No luck? STOP and try again in 10 min. no luck? STOP and try again in 10 min. But you should be GONE from the house the entire time!

Good luck - this is HARD (but not really, when you aren't right in the thick of it!!!!!!!!!)

As a breastfeeding educator I have a few questions for you.
Did you know that the physical process of breastfeeding and bottle feeding are totally different for the baby? The muscles used in breastfeeding and bottle feeding are different. It is confusing for a young child (9 weeks) to make this shift. Since he is more used to breastfeeding (which is more complicated than bottle feeding) he may feel like he is drowning when using the bottle. You could experiment with other nipples to find out if he perfers a different one. But if your baby comes to prefer the bottle over your breast, you will be heartbroken, I assure you.

You could use a syringe to feed instead of a bottle. Or cup feed with a small medicine cup.

But overall, your baby NEEDS YOU and the comfort of your breast to feel secure.

Try again in another month and see how it goes.

K. Voigtsberger
Certified Birth Doula
Certified Bradley Method® Educator
Breastfeeding Educator

You can't be the one to give the bottle! Period.... :) he knows your boobs are there. So you need to make sure he gets that bottle, from your husband or whoever, ONCE a day. If it is only here or there, throughout the week, then he is just not remembering it! Be consistant- like he always gets it about a certain time of the day! For us it was around dinner time. While I cooked my husband gave them the bottle. BUT it was in another room, away from me.

You have to keep at it and it will get easier. We did this with both my girls. Our lactation consultant gave me that advice and I love her for it! It allowed me to be able to leave the house and know they would be ok! Took such a weight off my shoulders. But it did take time.
With our last one (who is now 8 months) we did it nearly from day one and she never had an issue adjusting. To her it was just how it was... but with our first daughter we started around 8 weeks and it DID take time. When they get hungry enough they will eat. However for my husband he had to deal with the screaming and arching! But I figure it was the least he could do after I gave birth and did ALL nightime feedings :)
Just relax and know it will get better!

I'd agree with A.C.'s comments. Babies get very accustomed and almost trained on the shape of their mother's nipple. It's hard to go from that feeling to a rubber/silicone nipple, and you may have to try many different kinds first.

Our son hated the first few bottles (started at 6 weeks so I could go back to work). Finally, he'd take anything, but the Platex Drop-ins were favorites.

Good luck. Just keep trying. Just like learning to nurse, it's going to take patience and nerves of steel.

There are options so no worries! You can try the playtex drop ins with the latex (brown) nipple. It is very soft like the breast. And you can push the drop in just a tiny bit to get a little milk in their mouth. It helps let them know why you have put this foreign thing in their mouth and will sometimes get them going.

You can also try cup feeding. As crazy as it sounds it does work. NICUs will sometimes use this method for babies that are going to be breastfed so there is no nipple confusion. I had to do it with my preemie son to get him to take his meds mixed with my milk. I would swaddle him and use a small medicine type cup. I put it to his mouth and gave him just a tiny bit at a time but it worked!

My girlfriend's son won't take a bottle and they use a medicine syringe to put a little of her milk in his mouth at a time.

And he's only 9 weeks old. He's still learning about the world around him and because his other senses don't work well but his mouth does, he knows what is safe and familiar and that is the breast.

My boys have done this as well. Unfortunately you just have to keep trying as least once every other day or so. Try when he's hungry. If you're out and won't be back in time to feed him leave a bottle and if he takes it great, if not, just let him be hungry for a while and move up his nursing by maybe an hr. If he doesn't have the opportunity to learn that the bottle stops his hunger pains he'll keep refusing it.

Yep...absolutely no way can you give him a bottle! He knows your scent and he knows milk does not come from that bottle it comes from you!!! Only hubby or whoever can give the bottle. He isn't going to starve to death when you are gone...babies are smart! You can have your hubby try a sippy cup or even a small cup. It actually works...I was surprised! Good luck and you are doing a great job!

I exclusively breastfed our son for 9 months (then started baby food, then table food, and continued bfing till 18 months.)

HE NEVER TOOK A BOTTLE! When I would leave him with my parents (for a short time and I always fed him first) they would just put milk in a sippy cup and give him little drinks. He always drank enough to be satisfied till I came back.

Hi there,
Bravo to you for nursing! As a mom of two kids, one bottle fed and one breastfed, my personal advice would be to just nurse him as much as possible and be around all the time (if you are a working mom, when do you return to work?). I know that doesn't sounds too reasonable but this time will pass so quickly and it will be such a small part of your life in the big picture. Babies WILL take a bottle when they are hungry enough.....you may have to try 4 or 5 different bottles and make sure the formula is really warm enough. I think that is a big thing for my 9 month old when he takes the bottle. Good luck to you ! You are giving your baby and yourself such a special gift by nursing. As he gets older he will get more cooperative too about the bottle because he will start to be more aware of his surroundings and not just focused only on eating and snuggling like he is now. Also, husbands can feel pretty useless when the mom is nursing and I know mine felt inadequate at times when my youngest was learning how to take the bottle. make sure you are not home.....go for a walk or something because if your baby can smell you he will not take the bottle.
Good luck!
L.

I am going through something similar myself and my doc always has told me that she/he will eat if they are hungry enough. If you want him to take the bottle you might have to miss a few feedings until he does take it. Don't offer him the breast if you are trying to focus on the other. He seems awfully young to prefer one over the other. I would keep trying every day. I myself am spending the next 2 days weaning my girl off the breast completely. She doesn't flip back and forth all too well so it's all or nothing here. She has been exclusively breast fed for 4 months, so we will see how this goes! Good luck!

I had the exact same issue with my sons. It was really hard but I skipped a feeding if he didn't want to take the bottle. And once he was hungry enough he took the bottle. Other things that also helped were kind of distracting him. I would put him in his carseat and hold the bottle behind him and rock him at the same time or I would bounce him in my arms while holding the bottle.
My husbard was really frustrated but once I got him to take a bottle a few times it became consistent as long as we had a bottle every other day or so.

If you really need him on a bottle soon keep trying. I will happen. But seriously I remember crying and typing the exact same post with my first son 3 years ago. Don't worry it will happen.

Now I

You have gotten a lot of good answers and I'm sure you'll find a solution to get your son to drink from a bottle. I had this same issue with my now 8 month old daughter. After trying several different bottles and techniques we finally got her drinking from a bottle and continuing to breastfeed as well. After I was confident she would take a bottle I stopped practicing with her on a regular basis and now we are back to square one. I was gone for 4 hours and she wouldn't drink a drop while I was gone and then when I returned she nursed for nearly 30 minutes because she was so hungry! So the point to me telling you this... you will find a solution and when you do make a habit of it so you won't have to start over. Good luck and congrats on breastfeeding to begin with, that deserves a pat on the back all by itself!

Try different bottles. My son had a definite preference on bottle-types...and we didn't discover this at first because we didn't have that bottle type! I love the Avent wide-nipples, but if your son doesn't like those, you need to keep trying other types of bottles until you find one he likes. Check out BRU - they have a huge selection. For breastfed babies, in general, the wider nipples are better because they are closer to the shape of the breast. Good luck.

There are a lot of things you can do. First of all, you probably want to stop trying to give baby the bottle yourself. :) Most breastfed babies will refuse if mama is anywhere nearby. Sometimes you have to be out of the house entirely before they will give in and drink.

Try lots of different bottle nipples. Silicone, or natural rubber. Sometimes the rubber has a softer feel. (Natursutten makes a good rubber nipple -- they treat the rubber to remove the protein that can make kids more sensitive to latex allergies.) Have the caregiver try a few things ... sometimes they need to make it as much like breastfeeding as possible. Skin-to-skin, snuggled up close, rocking in the rocking chair. Maybe even in a warm bath together (at least at first) for maximum relaxation.

But sometimes it needs to be as different from breastfeeding as possible. Hold baby in a more upright position, even facing away from papa all together so babe has things to look at in the room and distract from how different the feeding is. Try sitting baby in a bouncy seat even.

If the bottle-feeding fails (some babies just never really figure it out), there are options. Medela makes soft cup feeders (you just tip a few drops of milk into baby's mouth and they have a swallow reflex) and there are also finger feeders. The finger feeders are especially great. (fingerfeeder dot com) They're made for breastfed babies who need supplementing, but my son loved to suck on my husband's index finger (clean, fingernail down) and I suspect they would have worked well beyond those early days.

Our son didn't have to take a bottle early on (except for a few nights out here and there), so by 4-5 months, I started to introduce a sippy cup. We liked the Nuby straw sippy.

My son never really took more than 2 or 3 ounces at a time via bottle. Just have the caregiver offer often. I never subscribed to the "they'll figure it out when they get hungry enough" idea. It's not a matter of being hungry enough, it's about teaching them HOW to drink from a bottle when they don't understand how, and that it's OKAY to drink from one, even though it's so different from their favorite way to eat. Babies don't like change. :)