HELP- back to work in 6 days, dd won't take bottle

[jennlin]

any suggestions?

yes, yes, i waited too long. we tried once at 12wks, she screamed, we were weak, we quit. we've tried once a day since 17wks (we're at 18wks today), and she's not liking it. she'll suck on the bottle for 5 or 6 sucks, realize what's going on, then start crying and won't take it anymore. a couple drops here and there, that's it.

we've tried dad feeding her, me feeding her, MIL feeding her, my mom feeding her, me in the house, me outside of the house...she doesn't like any of it. she tolerates me trying the best, but still won't take it.

we're using avent bottles, we tried size 1 and size 2 nipples. in our "starter pack", we also got a sippy cup nozzle adapter thingy. we're going to try that next..

any other suggestions? or do we just keep trying what we are doing?

[backinpgh]

Ours would never take a bottle. We moved straight to a sippy cup. She needed help at first, now she just holds her own.

[MrsAxilla]

Jun 20, 2012 23:06:47 GMT -5 backinpgh said:

Ours would never take a bottle. We moved straight to a sippy cup. She needed help at first, now she just holds her own.

Sorry to say, but ditto. He never took a bottle. How old is your baby?

[jennlin]

Jun 20, 2012 23:08:28 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Jun 20, 2012 23:06:47 GMT -5 backinpgh said:

Ours would never take a bottle. We moved straight to a sippy cup. She needed help at first, now she just holds her own.

Sorry to say, but ditto. He never took a bottle. How old is your baby?

She's 18wks today. The sippy actually had good success. She took 1.5oz before she started fussing. I'm scared about the fast flow of the sippy, though....will she still love me?

[MamaMaui24]

I would try different brand bottles with size 1 nipples. Dr. Brown, Tommy Tippee, even the cheapie ones.

[Ashley&Scott]

Try different brands of bottles. We tried:

Tommee Tippee- he took these for a few weeks then started screaming bloody murder any time it came near him.

BreastFlow- he took these without screaming but didn't seem to get very much milk. (it's a dual nipple system)

Born Free- these worked. He seemed to have decent control over the flow. At first he just played with the nipple, eventually he started drinking.

Also try different positions. We found DS would only take a bottle laying flat on his changing pad. (somewhere he was content to play) Walking around while trying to feed also seemed to distract him enough so he would eat.

Have you tried different temps of milk. We found he wanted the milk really warm.

I was worried that DS would start to prefer the bottle over me. It was never a problem. He's still not a fan of the bottle but he will take it while I'm away.

[Ashley&Scott]

When you do go back to work, send more bottles with smaller amounts to minimize waste. When we first started daycare at we were sending 8 - 1oz bottles. Once she gets the hang of it you can slowly increase the amounts. DS has been in daycare for about 14 weeks now, we've slowly increased .5oz at a time, we're now at 2.5oz bottles.

[mie]

Try not to stress. Child #2 and #3 were very stubborn and wouldn't take the bottle. With child #2, I tried different bottles, temperatures, holds etc and nothing worked. I went back to work on a Thursday, she went to daycare and it was a rough couple of days. She eventually realized that she was going to have to drink from the bottle and she got the hang of it. I had a similar experience with child #3 except I refused to try different bottles, but I did use mam nipples with avent bottles. Good luck!

[mie]

Sorry, I meant I used Nuk nipples with Avent bottles. I don't know why, but the Avent nipples made her gag.

[curbsideprophet]

DD was never great with bottles. We tried before sending her to daycare and it did not go well most of the time. Daycare had more luck with bottles than we did, however she transitioned to a cup pretty quickly.

[Ashley&Scott]

Jennlin- you're back to work now right? How are things going?

[jennlin]

Jun 30, 2012 12:07:25 GMT -5 Ashley&Scott said:

Jennlin- you're back to work now right? How are things going?

yeah...she's actually doing really well..so that's good. i started back on a wednesday...and on monday and tuesday, i "practiced" being away from DD...she cried and screamed the whole time, and she nursed with me for hours and hours when i got home. it made going into work on wednesday super difficult.

wednesday, MIL says she does JUST FINE. she didn't eat much, but she didn't cry, etc. by thursday, she was eating from the bottle. so it's bittersweet. i'm glad she's not stressed anymore, but i'm sad that she no longer NEEDS me...

working moms are my hero. this is hard sht!

[Ashley&Scott]

({) (}) Hang in there mama, it does get better! And she definitely still needs you

[jennlin]

thanks for the support. i love bf moms. seriously.

[curbsideprophet]

Glad going back to work went okay.

[MamaMaui24]

I noticed you've been posting more and must be back at work...

How's it going with DD and the bottle? Did you find one she liked or did she just get used to it?

[jennlin]

Jul 11, 2012 15:50:14 GMT -5 MamaMaui24 said:

I noticed you've been posting more and must be back at work...

How's it going with DD and the bottle? Did you find one she liked or did she just get used to it?

we had her get used to the avent bottles. i didn't have a lot of time to switch around and try and get her to accept each one..so it was avent, or nothing! she's doing really well now, which makes me a little sad..i wish she NEEDed me so i can quit my job and stay at home!!