Getting 6 month old to take a bottle
Hello! We have tried for months to get my 6 month old son to take a bottle, but have been as yet unsuccessful. He doesn't get mad when offered, but he just sort of chews on the nipple for a bit, then pushes it away. With a faster flow nipple, some milk will get in his mouth, and he'll even squelch this milk out the corner of his mouth. He also does not take a pacifier. I went back to work 2 weeks ago and it has been quite difficult for his dad, who is currently at home caring for him for 9 hours while I'm gone. We started solids and he will take a little fruit/veg puree and some oatmeal with lots of pumped breast milk mixed in, but no bottle. He nurses right when I get home, and about every 2-3 hours overnight. We've started cosleeping just to make this easier on everyone (except his dad, over on the edge of the bed). I'm looking for suggestions, or even names of babysitters or nannies who have had great success in teaching babies to take a bottle in the past. We've tried many different bottles (Avent, Playtex, Comotomo, Mam, Natursutten, Medela, Dr. Brown's...) and many different family members have tried (grandparents, aunts, dad, etc). Our pediatrician reassured us he's ok physically, but it seems to me that fasting all day and nursing all night is not sustainable. Eventually he'll likely take a sippy cup... I hope... but that's not for a few months at the earliest. Many thanks!
Parent Replies
My kids breast fed and had a hard time with bottles. We started them on sippy cups early for when I wasn't breast feeding and just skipped over bottle feeding. We found that these sippy cups worked really well and they got used to them quickly. Both of my kids started on sippy cups right around 6 months.
https://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Miracle-Trainer-Orange-Ounce/dp/B00MRZIGWA/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1502901093&sr=8-2&keywords=sippy+cups+360
Oh, this is such a frustrating situation for a working mom. You have my sympathies.
Fasting all day and nursing all night is, in fact, entirely sustainable for your baby - but probably not for you! Some "reverse cycling", as ris is usually called, is really quite healthy, and it does help limit the amount of pumping you have to do (i really liked that aspect, personally!) but of course you'll have to figure out how to make it doable without losing too much sleep yourself.
As for getting baby to take a bottle, a change in the temperature of the milk is successful more often than a change in the type of bottle or nipple, so tbat may be worth trying. But my top suggestiom is to forget bottles altogether and use a cup! Just a regular open-top cup, with baby either sitting in Dad's lap, or in a highchair facing Dad, and Dad holding and guiding the cup, usually works well.
As a bonus, you won't need to worry about how best to get rid of the bottles at 1 year. :)
Hi, I feel for you!!! And it's so nice that your husband can stay with the baby! Both my son and daughter refused the bottle, and I was completely desperate for my son who was my firstborn to take it. He never did, and by the time my daughter was born, I didn't really care because I knew that it didn't really matter. Trust me, it really doesn't, even though it's hard for a little while, but then in a month or two at the most it'll all be a smooth (mostly!) routine. It all worked out fine for both of my kids to never really have a bottle, and while my son loved the pacifier, my daughter never wanted one. My son was in daycare and my daughter with a nanny at our home, and they did what you are doing, i.e. getting breast milk into them by mixing it with cereal and purees. Around 6 months, they started on sippy cups, and got a hang of those fairly easily. By 8 months, they both were handling their own cups (not only sucking, but also lifting them up to get everything out), while their counterparts who started on a bottle first took a long time (sometimes until age 2) to learn to drink from a cup. A 6 month old can do a sippy cup just as well as a bottle or maybe even better; there are lots of sippy cups geared toward younger babies (shaped like a nipple, etc).
Also, with both of my kids, I either came to see them, or had someone drive them to me for a mid-day nursing. It may be not feasible for you to come home in the middle of the day, but maybe your husband can drive the baby to you, or maybe you both can meet mid-way. For your husband, driving somewhere with a baby may be a welcome opportunity to get out of the house anyway, and the baby can sleep in the car which they often do.
They say children grow up too fast, and this time will fly by before you know it. It gets so much easier by 8 months, and then it keeps getting easier until they turn into teenagers!!!! Hang in there!
You have described my situation exactly! We finally moved to the NUK learner cup: https://smile.amazon.com/NUK-Fashion-Elephants-Learner-5-Ounce/dp/B00BE… and my 7-month-old is happily taking it.
Good luck!
Sippy cup or even just a small cup that you tip to his lips. Also taste your milk. If it tastes soapy it may be high in lipase which is not problematic but some babies don't like the taste. You can look online on how to scald it to take the taste away. Also if he's not upset while you're gone then it may not be an issue (for him) and as long as you're not too exhausted it can work out.
This happened when we tried to get my son to take a bottle at 3 months. It turned out that he had a tongue tie that the doc didn't diagnose. We worked with Amrit Khalsa and she was helpful in diagnosing the tongue tie. We got it clipped but he never took to the bottle and we had to start him on solids/bone broth and liver so I could go to work. Good luck!!
http://www.amritkkhalsa.com/
It must be so rough on everyone. I'm sorry. What about cutting back on nighttime feeding to get him hungrier for milk during the day? He may have figured out that if he holds out long enough, you'll be home to feed him all night long. I would check with your pediatrician and depending on what s/he says, start cutting back on nighttime feeds. Good luck!
The same thing happened to me a few months ago when I went back to work. It was a stressful time! It took about 3-4 weeks but eventually my baby gave up and started drinking from the bottle. She still won't take a bottle from me (since she knows I'm the source) but she is happily drinking from a bottle when others feed her.
Good luck!
I feel for you. I really do. I'm sorry to say that my daughter never took a bottle, and I had to rearrange my work schedule so I could go in to feed her until she was able to drink from a sippy cup. We discovered that she would drink my pumped milk from the sippy cup (or zippy cup, as AutoCorrect would prefer!) ONLY if it was cold. She rejected it if it was warmed up. So, my suggestion is to try the milk at different temperatures. My second suggestion is to try a straw sippy cup. My daughter wouldn't use the ones that you have to lift up to drink, but she did just fine with the straw kind. This is what we used: https://www.amazon.com/Nuby-Two-Handle-Straw-Ounce-Colors/dp/B000Y2GY40…. My hypothesis is that both the cold milk and the straw provide an experience that was different enough from breastfeeding to be acceptable to her; i.e., she didn't feel like I was trying to pass off a cheap substitute (bottle and warmed milk). By 9 months, she was completely on the zippy cup during the day while I was at work. This is a painful period that you're going through, but it will pass more quickly than you realize! Good luck!