Help!!! My 3 mos DD has decided she only wants the breast, no more bottle.

[jastinker]

My DD had taken a bottle (dr Brown's) without any difficulty since she was 5 days old, along with being a terrific breast feeder. Progessively this past month she has begun fussing with the bottle. She is now to the point that she will cry hyterrically whenever you try to give her the bottle. We have tried, Avent stage 1 & 2, Dr Brown's 0 & 2, and Platex Vent-aire stage 1. She howls (with real tears streaming down her face) whether it is formula or breast milk. I have tried stealthily switching the binkie (which she will be vigirously sucking) for the bottle...no go. My husband has tried, my mother even the nurses at our local breastfeeding clinic. I am desperate as my milk supply is really decreasing and I am going to have a surgical procedure and will not be able to breastfeed for 2-3 weeks. I even tried sleeping with the nipple in my bra, thinking if it had my scent she would go to town, nope.

Please any help would really be appreciated. Thank you

[Jen in Chicago]

I am sorry you are going through this. We went through a similar thing we called "Bottle Camp." Someone other than myself (we went to Grandma's where there is a lot of traffic), with me out of the picture, fed Jude bottles during the day for a week (I pumped in another room.) We tried each type of bottle 4 times. I tried most of what Walmart had in stock, and the little guy liked the plain old Gerber bottles the best (I tried the cheapest last.) I would give a bottle from me too when no one was available. As a last resort we moved to the boob. We only offered 1 type of bottle per sitting.

My only advice really is to try the Gerbers b/c they were magical for us, and to be agressive with the training. It will work eventually.

[sntm]

If she becomes hungry enough, she will take the bottle. It might save you a lot more heartache if you just continue to breastfeed her now (which will also help your supply) and start bottle boot camp when you can't breastfeed. I'd also make sure that you really can't breastfeed after your surgery -- there is a lot of misinformation out there about breastfeeding post-surgery, especially among surgeons! I'm a surgery resident and active on Lactnet -- if you want more info, you can email me and I will do some checking for you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[proggoddess]

My daughter is around 3 mo. and she is starting to fuss at the bottle as well. DH sticks through it, as I am at work and unavailable during the day.

What he does now is try to catch her when she is just waking up/mostly asleep. She'll open her eyes briefly, but close them again and just start sucking. Sometimes this is before she wakes up, and sometimes it is after she's cried for a bit and is exhausted. It all depends on how fussy she is that day.

I think it has also helped that we're using a bigger milk to formula ratio than in the past. Now that she's older, I think she realizes that the formula taste is different than plain breastmilk.

[deborah_r]

I have seen so many posts with this same problem and we went through it ourselves. I think this is why most of the experts will discourage you from starting the bottle early. Well, two reasons really - to avoid nipple confusion, and also, because most times it just doesn't help, because when the baby reaches about 3 months old, they usually develop a preference for one or the other (bottle or breast) anyway. I think it was exactly 3 months that DS refused the bottle. We sort of got him to take it again, but didn't keep up with it. The one thing I remember that worked was DS wanted the milk very, very warm, like so it actually felt a little hot on your wrist when you checked it. That was what worked for us. We never tried different bottles - I don't see the point really, since you know your DD can eat from whatever bottle you were already using, I doubt a different bottle or nipple is going to bring her around.

I would just keep trying with one consistent bottle that you've had good luck with in the past, and maybe try different temps with the milk and see if it helps.

Good luck to you!

[mudder17]

I had this same problem with DD. She started taking a bottle with no problem at 4 weeks. Then around 8 weeks she started fussing with the bottle and eventually stopped taking it all together. We tried Avent (her first bottle), Playtex, Adiri, generic Hospital, and finally someone suggested using a sippy cup instead. We tried that and she didn't spit it out as quickly as the bottles, but she also didn't suck very successfully from it. I had to have surgery, but I was only out of commission for 16 hours. Well, on that day we tried everything with different bottles (you should have seen our living room floor!) and when she was clearly very hungry, she sucked down a few gulps from one of the bottles and then immediately threw it all up! In the end, about 30 minutes before I could feed her, someone suggested using a medicine dropper. Guess what? She took it just fine. She even tried using a sucking motion on it. I wish we had figured it out sooner!

Now, I know that long term, a medicine dropper is not an option, but I do use it now to deliver a teaspoon of prune juice at every nursing session and she's getting better and better at not getting any spilled on herself. We haven't tried it yet, but our pediatric nurse and pediatrician both recommended delivering the milk to her with a regular plastic cup, such as the medicine cups that come with cough medicine. They said that at 3 months, she'd be old enough, with practice, to drink out of a cup. We just haven't gotten around to trying it yet because we don't have one of those and the medicine dropper currently works just fine.

Sorry I can't be more help, but I definitely feel for you!


Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya
born 22 February 2004

http://www.chemicalgraphics.com/kaya

[jastinker]

Thank you to all of your responses. I had breast surgery in 1997 and my supply is really small to begin with. I have to use a SNS (supplemental nursing system). When I pump I get about 1.5 oz total from both breasts. I am having biopsies done on both breasts. Another positive mamogram :( Anyway thanks again I tried the gerber bottle, no success. I'll let you know if anything changes.

[jillc]

My DD also decided at about 2 months that she was no longer interested in taking the bottle of EBM, which she had done just fine every couple of days since she was 4 wks old. She would just get worked up into a screaming frenzy any time we tried. We kept trying w/the Avent bottles for a few weeks (lots of frustration for my DH & my mom), and we had lots of tears & little success.

But then we realized that since she likes the nuk binkie, maybe she would do better w/the nuk nipple... and it made a big difference! She still definitely prefers the breast, but she takes the bottle w/the nuk nipple a lot better than the Avent. After a few weeks of getting her to take the bottle w/the nuk nipple, she has just in the last few weeks started to take it w/o any fussing at all!! :)

Maybe your DD might do well w/the nuk, too, since she likes the binkie??

Best of luck. Hang in there.

[sntm]

Oh, so sorry. I hope the pathology is negative. Good luck to you, both for your baby and your health.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[jastinker]

Thank you to every one!!! I checked BRU and Target and can't find NUK nipples. Are they someplace unusual or any idea where I can get some to try. Right now the old fashioned platex orthodontic latex nipple is the least offensive to herre. She loves her MAM binkie too. Thank you again, what would I do with out this board??? :)

[Abbey]

Wow!!! After a one month strike, my 4 month DS decided he would again take a bottle!!! Yippee!!! *Ü* Thank you to whoever posted the advice to give him a very very warm bottle. That's what did the trick.
ALSO-
We put him in his high chair to feed it to him. I think when he is held close to someone, dh, grandma, or whoever, it reminds him too much of nursing.
I am so thankful!!! Good luck-