My baby is 8 months, for about the last month he has refused to take a bottle. He is mainly breastfed and only gets a bottle when I am at work. He has refused the bottle since his top two teeth came in, but Im not sure if thats the cause or just coincidence. We have tried different kinds of bottles, sippy cups, straw top cups, ect. He wants no part of any of it. I mainly do 4 hr shifts, and one 6 hour at the end of my work week, which is on Sunday. By Monday he is constipated from not drinking while I am gone. I nurse him before I leave and when I get home but he still needs to have something to drink while I am gone. Anyone have any idea what to do?? TIA
Like learning to nurse differently with teeth, he may need to learn how to use a bottle differently. I'd make sure he has pain medication in the event that there are more teeth. I'd also offer water in a sippy cup to see if he would take that to prevent dehydration, and then nurse more at home.
I don't know of any way to successfully "Make" a baby take a bottle. I would say the best thing to do is when you are working, have the child care provider give him cereal mixed with a lot of expressed milk or formula and some pureed veggies/fruits. I think you are lucky that it's just at 8 months that he is doing this and you have food option which would not be the case at 2 months.
The only thing that worked for my daughter was for the caregivers to feed her breastmilk from a cup (no sippy). When I described it to them I would say just put it to her lips like you might give a drink to someone elderly or sick. One of her first babysitter at 5 months didn't believe me and 4 adults (her and her neighbors) all individually tried different methods to have her take a bottle (each thinking they were the "master" at this :) to no avail. But, sipping from the side of the bottle like an open cup worked every time. Good luck with this and great job nursing so consistently. Eventually mine both took sippy cups that were the straw style long before they took a more traditional first sippy cup and I had many other nursing moms tell me it was the same for them.
My son never used a bottle. Out of desperation, my hubby used a sippy cup. it was a repeated process. Finally at about 6 months, the sippy cup was the go to for when I was out of the house.
Find one that you like and keep offering it. It worked best for us when I was out of the house.
Could you try giving him a soft tip sippy cup? Maybe his teeth are causing the bottle nipple to feel weird.
My daughter wouldn't drink breast milk from a bottle, only formula. Maybe that's it?
