Need Help Weaning 8 Week Old. Baby Suddenly Refusing Bottle.

I don't have an answer for you -- sorry! -- but I would respectfully encourage you to keep nursing when you can. If you can pump, even a little, that's best, but even if not, I would recommend continuing to nurse when you're with him.

If you have to get him used to bottles, can you have one of his caregivers try giving him one? Professional infant carers are often very good at this, and he may accept a bottle better from someone else. With you, he knows you've got the real thing going on.

I'm confused? Why do you need to wean so you can go back to work?

If it's a matter of the baby taking a bottle when you do go back, which you can pump for, the baby will take it eventually from it's new caregiver cause you won't be around and the baby won't be able to smell you anymore.

Many mom's just leave it be and let baby and caregiver figure it out together. Besides would you want milk after having ice cream? Your milk tastes 1000's times better then formula. A formula fed baby is happy cause that's what they know, a breastfed baby knows that there is something better so why would they settle?

You have a month before you go back to work. Just nurse him till then. Also, I don't understand why nursing and working and incompatible. You can nurse him in the morning and the when you get home. While he is in childcare he will take the bottle. He will soon learn that boobs only come from mom.

For what it is worth I took the hip shot approach with my son. What I mean is I took him to daycare on day one of going back to work and that was the first time he ever received a bottle. I figured as someone mentioned below that a professional daycare provider would be able to give him a bottle successfully. Perhaps not the recommended approach but I had so much on my plate it was the decision I made. I have been back at work for nearly a month now and my son has been fine with receiving bottles at daycare from the outset. Granted I did not wean my son since I pump at work and nurse him when I am off so my experience may not be of any help to you. At any rate good luck and congratulations on your new baby.

Our pediatrician gave us some advice about this that turned out to be so true! When I went back to work after our oldest was born, I was so concerned because she wouldn't take a bottle from me, nor would she take a bottle whatsoever while I was home! She knew if she cried, I would nurse her, which she preferred over the bottle. But our pedi told us that babies will not starve themselves. He said, just go back to work, and when you're not there to nurse her, and she's starving, she WILL take the bottle! Well, that first day at work, I was a wreck imagining my poor, starving baby. I got home, and my husband (who stayed home with her for several months) reported that she fussed and fussed, and finally she realized that I wasn't going to be nursing her, so she took the bottle! She ate really well for all of her feedings that day, and thereafter. She still wasn't wild about taking a bottle from ME, but she would if it became apparent that that was the only way she was going to be fed!

Have you tried different bottles? My daughter would only take 1 type- I think I tried every brand out there! If you can pump during the day I encourage that-I worked full time and pumped 5 times per day for 10 months! It was very hard, though, so its understandable if you can't. When I did supplement, it was with Good Start.

Keep nursing, and perhaps talk to a lactation consultant about transitioning and other bottle options. The more breastmilk he gets, the better.