My Daughter Will Not Take a Bottle, Any Suggestions?

Mine was the same. What worked for us was a sippy cup. She would use the take and toss kind that don't have a valve and she didnt have to work so hard at sucking. The milk would drip in her mouth a little and then she would suck when she realized there was something in there. Also, when she wouldn't take a bottle at daycare, they sometimes would take the top off and put a straw in it....and she would drink from that. Try to be creative...

If you're feeding pumped breastmilk, it might be that you have excess lipase in your milk, like I do...if I don't scald it briefly after pumping, it gets a bizarre soapy taste within about 3 hours. Kinda sucks, but I have found that if I just zap it in the microwave for a few seconds before it goes to the fridge, it stays tasting good.

This drove us batty until we figured it out! I had just gone back to work (at 3. months), and my l.o. was refusing all feedings, and would be ravenous by the time I got her back. It was rough on everyone! We tried every bottle too - she liked the Breastflow bottles the best, and once I started scalding the milk after pumping, everything was good.

Best of luck!

We dealt with this issue. Had the best luck with Avent and Born Free new-born nipple/bottles. Also, it's a taste thing. Start by pumping just an ounce or two and IMMEDIATELY put it in a bottle, hand it to your husband (along with your hungry daughter) and leave the house for an hour.

You can't be in the room or anywhere nearby, or she'll just wait for the real thing. Start with super fresh pumped milk. Then you can move to milk that you pumped previously, and eventually should be able to go to frozen/pumped milk.

Also, make sure your husband (or whoever is feeding her) doesn't tip the bottle up too high - she is used to "working" a bit for her food, and babies that are breastfed can gag if the milk flows too fast.

I use Avent. Awesome bottles and you can get different tops.

I had to get my baby used to the bottle at 3 weeks because I had to go back to work. It sounds horrible, but I had to not nurse and make him take the bottle before I could return to work. It is really hard (for you much more than for them). You just have to keep waiting and keep giving the bottle until he takes it!

I highly recommend the Playtex nurser with the latex (brown) slow-flow nipple. It is very soft like mom but you can also use the drop in to squirt just a tiny bit of warm breastmilk into baby's mouth so they know why this different nipple is in their mouth.

Neither of my exclusively breastfed babies would ever really take a paci and I tried them all.

Also, another thought. Check to make sure your milk still tastes right after being pumped. For some moms the milk changes to a soapy taste (and please forgive me, I can't think of the name of what happens right this minute). I would taste a bit then maybe an hour later taste it again to see if there is any change that also might affect her willingness to take the bottle.

possible tongue tie? my son did this and i was not told by anyone that he was tongue tied until he was five on his yearly check up..... but that is what I experienced in trying to give him the bottle and purchased all kinds of bottles ....... would sometimes take it of course but it was a difficult time.

My son was the same way! We tried all the nipples which supposedly mimicked breastfeeding and he would not take them. I finally got him to take the ORIGINAL nuk nipples in latex. (Not the wide mouth ones) I had to order the nipples off of Amazon. He will take anything now, but those were the ones that got him started. :) I have heard other breastfeeding moms say they had the same luck with those nipples.

Good luck!

My daughter never took a bottle either. Nor a pacifier.
I nursed her and my son.
My son did take a bottle and pacifier.
Each baby is different.

For my son, I used the "MAM" brand bottles. Not found in stores. I got it from Amazon. It is BPA free and has a natural nipple and my son loved it as did I.
It comes in 3 packs too and is cute.

My daughter would NOT take any bottles. At all.

Go to Babies R' Us. They sell alot more than 4 kinds of bottles. My son was also a picky one when it came to a bottle. It took us I bet 8 kinds of bottles before he finally took one without a fight.

There are Evenflo, Gerber Tri-Flo, Gerber Nuk (son used), Soothie, Dr, Brown's, Avent, Sassy MAM (daughter used), Tommee Tippee, BornFree, Playtex Ventaire, Playtex Drop-ins, Breastflow, thinkbaby, Podee, Medela.

Just keep trying, she will find one she likes!

Have you tried letting someone else give her the bottle when you aren't there? Babies often won't take a bottle when mom is around. Have whoever offers her the bottle give it to her a half an hour before you expect her to get hungry. If she's really hungry the hunger will make it nearly impossible to learn a new skill. Also, warm the nipple up under running water. It will feel warm like your skin. Sometimes babies will take a bottle if the person has them facing out and walking around. The motion and gentle swaying is soothing to babies.
Also, you could try giving her a small (2 oz) plastic bottle with a regular standard nipple on it. Leaving it empty, give it to her to play with -sort of like a teething toy. Once she's comfortable putting the nipple in her mouth and sucking on it a little bit, put a 1/4 to a 1/2 ounce of breast milk in it. Let her discover it's a feeding method. This usually works after a week or two. HTH

That stinks! We had the same experience and it was awful, especially for my husband who bore the brunt of it. I spoke with my lactation consultant about it and she recommended those SUPER cheap brown nipples (I think I got mine at the grocery store). I took the playtex bottles and replaced the nipple and she took to it immediately. I think those are pretty fast flow and mimicked my breastmilk flow.

I now have tons of really nice quality, expensive bottles when all my daughter wanted was the cheap kind! :) Good luck!

ya do whats best and cheepest for her breastfeed and keep up the good work she will start decreasing feedings soon and it won't be so hard