BF Baby: talk me through this bottle refusal thing

[srhs]

DS2 had a lot of bottles at the beginning (weight gain issues, etc.), a lot. He always had/has a stridor noise with them and also used to have that at the breast but hasn't in awhile. He's 3mo now and sputters/gags/squeaks/fights when we give him Drop-Ins bottles and is having no part of it. Can you believe that little booger...after all that supplementation, he's decided to be EBF, lol. Anyway, I tried a Nuk, and he didn't fight it but appeared to get NOTHING out of it...even after I losened the collar.

Sooooo, what bottles should we try? Dumping thawed BM is NOT COOL.

[Katigre]

You could try a nuby sippy cup - the flow is very slow and only when they chew/suck on it (unlike a bottle that is fast for a bf baby).

[Dr C]

The key to this, IMO, is practice, practice, practice. He has learned to drink from the breast without stridor/sputtering so he should be able to do the same from a bottle, but it makes sense that it will take a few tries to figure it out. A few tricks: have you tried having somebody else feed him a bottle? Some babies will have nothing to do with a bottle unless mom is nowhere to be found. Sometimes you even have to leave the house! Holding the bottle horizontally also helps--he has to work a bit harder to get the milk out and the position is more like the breast.
There are so many bottles out there and every baby is different so it's tough to say which one to suggest. Do you have some local friends you could borrow various types from so you don't have to spend $$ trying things out? One obvious idea would be a slightly faster flow Nuk nipple (if he can't get anything out of the Nuk nipple you have now). Oh, and you may want to put only 1 oz or so of milk in each bottle so you don't waste too much if it gets rejected!

[lmr1101]

This may not help much, but I wanted you to know you're not alone. My daughter did the exact same thing at 3 months.
Everyone gave me helpful suggestions, but nothing seemed to get her to take a bottle again.
By 4 months we started teaching her to use a sippy cup. That worked better than the bottle. It still took a lot of work, but she was at least willing to drink a few oz out of the sippy. We could tell she didn't always love that so we even tried just a small cup (with no lid). Somedays that is the most successful way.
Good luck, and just keep trying new things at some point something else will work.

[wendibird22]

Yup, DD did the bottle strike at 3mos as well...just in time for me to go back to work. I think it's pretty common around that age.

I can remember the night that DH ran to BRU just before it closed buying up a variety of bottles praying that we'd find one that DD liked. Of course, a few days at daycare with no other option than the bottle and she was fine with the old bottles (Avent at the time). I had luck with Avent and also with the Medela bottles that came with the pump (switched to these when we learned our Avents had BPA). I actually just bought new Medela's in anticipation of DD2.

[AnnieW625]

Have you tried Avent? We bottle fed DD from two weeks old and also breast fed until four months. When DD was first born we tried the Playtex curved ones with the wide nipple and while those worked great I found them too cumbersome to clean so I switched to Avent. Before I started to wean at 3 mos. (one feeding per week) we hadn't used the bottles much at all and DD went back to the Avent with no problems. We had no problems with her refusing the bottle and once she weaned she was fine. We did forget a bottle once after that when we were out, and tried a Gerber bottle with the small nipple and DD didn't know what to do with it because she was soo used to the bigger nipple.

[alleycat]

Someone on this board suggested I use the First Years Breastflow bottle and it worked. DD refused the Drop-ins but took to the Breastflow. The nipple is very soft and has two parts. The baby has to compress and suck to get the milk, it mimics the breast. It's been pretty effective for us.

[smiles33]

Not to make you anxious, but be prepared for the possibility that it might be a permanent bottle strike. DD2 took 2 bottles of formula before my milk came in (due to jaundice issues) but then didn't have another bottle until she was 3 weeks old. Every day since then, we've struggled as I WOH full-time. We tried 6 different bottles (Avent, Dr. Brown, Born Free, Playtex Drop-in, Evenflo, and Mam). She pretty much refuses to suck so her teachers had to either pour it in, use a spoon, or an eyedropper. I nurse her when I drop off at 7:30, go once during lunch, and then when I pick her up at 4:30. They give her some EBM but she takes very little. She had 2.5 oz today and had 3 oz yesterday. Fortunately, she isn't suffering at all. As a 3-4 month old, she would nurse 3 hours straight on-and-off once we get home each evening. Now that she's 6 months old, I don't spend all night on the couch but her weight & height are both still in the 90th percentile for her age.

Long story short--your DS will make up for the missed nursing sessions at night!