How to Get Baby to Take a Bottle. - Plano,IL

All great advice and similar to what I did with my first...she never adapted to the bottle...around 6 months I started with a double handled sippy cup and we never looked back. My second took either breast or bottle w/o a problem..she might just be a boob girl and not a bottle girl.

K.:

a) she will likely not take a bottle from you...

b) there are others ways to get milk into her other than a bottle.

i see a number of families to assist with this...

P. RLC, IBCLC
Breastfeeding and Parenting Solutions

K.

I feel your pain. My first daughter refused the bottle and finally took it at 4 months. My second daughter never took the bottle. With the 2nd I was not working so it did not bother me to just nurse. I did start the sippy cup earlier(6 months) with both girls. Just enjoy your time with her. They grow so fast and now my 2nd is 15 months and the time flew by. I do not regret it at all. Look at it this way she is so close to taking a cup and it is one less thing to wean her off at 1yr. GOOD LUCK!

I just went through this with my baby as I am getting ready to go back to work. It is best if someone other than you feeds them the bottle. We also went through about 5 different nipple/bottles until we finally found one that he liked. The playtex drop-in is the only one he would take. It has a much larger nipple and he could grasp it like a real breast.

1. YOU shouldn't try and feed your baby a bottle. Have someone else do it while you're out of sight
2. Try with fresh-pumped breastmilk first. Sometimes it tastes a little off when you freeze it.
3. Go out for an hour or two and let your husband try. Try every day for a week or two until she takes it. You'll be glad she will take a bottle - gives you a lot more freedom to get out for a few hours by yourself!
4. My daughter would only take the Avent or Born Free bottles - these seem to have the slowest-flowing nipples there are. Everything else caused her to choke and gag. She is exclusively breastfed unless I'm gone.... we tried several bottles and use the Born Free now.

Here are some things that you may want to try: 1)warm the milk up so it's warm. babies who are breastfed are used to their milk naturally being warm. 2)have someone else feed her while you're out of the room. 3)if it is you giving her the bottle, then try to position her differently then how you hold while nursing. for example, have her sit facing out and give her the bottle.4)make sure the nipple flow is right for your baby. my son was frustrated with the slow flow, and loved it when I moved him up to #2. my son was also breastfed and had a bottle strike for awhile when younger. it took persistence, but he finally did take bottles when i needed him too. i tried different types of bottles too as well as the things i listed above, and he eventually took it.

I had the same problem. My daughter would frown up and push it out with her tongue. It took me and my husband 3 weeks of offering the bottle twice a day before my daughter would finally take it. I'm not sure how long you've been trying, but don't give up.

Make sure you're using one of the bottles/nipples that are designed for breastfed babies. These usually have a wider base.

If she is choking on the milk, check to make sure the nipple hole is not too big. I always use the slow flow stage 1 nipples--even now and my daughter is a little over six months old.

Warm the bottle nipple under running water before you give it to her. You can even try putting it in your shirt for awhile to make it smell like you.

Try making bottle time fun for her. Sing an upbeat song and act excited like she's getting a special treat. (This sounds kind of corny, but it actually worked for us sometimes). Give her the bottle when she's sitting in her swing or bouncer or something else fun.

Good luck and keep us posted.

my daughter was only 4 weeks when we started this, but she still put up quite a fight! We tried about 5 different bottles (avent, ventaire and a few others) but what finally stuck was the playtex drop-ins...she also needed the milk WARM...like one step below being too hot...otherwise she wouldn't take it...it took a few weeks before she was comfortable with it, but now she goes between breast and bottle without blinking and we don't even have to warm it to ridiculous temperatures anymore either...good luck and hang in there...give the drop-ins a try...the bottles are cheap and if you're not going to use it all the time, the liners will barely cost you anything...