Bottle refusal?

sdlaura

Thought I'd ask here instead of my new baby board because you ladies have more experience. 7-week-old DS started refusing a bottle. He has never taken a pacifier either. We've tried 4 different nipples so far but I'm going to try latex and a smaller nipple - that's the advice I've gotten so far. We didn't have this issue with DD. Any other ideas? Thanks!

alrighthamilton

We did go through this when Kate was around 5 weeks old. We bought practically every bottle and nipple on the market before eventually finding out, much later, that she had a milk allergy. Once we switched to soy formula she was fine with the bottle. I know that may not be your little guy's issue, but thought I'd share. It seemed like I was calling her doctor every other day due to her bottle refusal. It's frustrating because it could be any number of reasons why, from something simple like not liking the nipple style to something more serious like an allergy. Good luck. I remember how stressed and worried I was.

sdlaura

Becc77 said:

We did go through this when Kate was around 5 weeks old. We bought practically every bottle and nipple on the market before eventually finding out, much later, that she had a milk allergy. Once we switched to soy formula she was fine with the bottle. I know that may not be your little guy's issue, but thought I'd share. It seemed like I was calling her doctor every other day due to her bottle refusal. It's frustrating because it could be any number of reasons why, from something simple like not liking the nipple style to something more serious like an allergy. Good luck. I remember how stressed and worried I was.

Thanks for this thought - we already know about his intolerances, though, so I'm sure that's not the issue. He's EBF and I had to remove dairy, soy, and wheat from my diet. So I'm just trying to get him to drink my pumped milk, which he's fine with when nursing the rest of the time. You're right, this is really stressful - at least I have some more time before I go back to work! Thank you for trying to help!

vvvvvfee

who is offering him the bottle? some LOs will refuse the bottle if mom offers it, or is even anywhere in the area, because they'd rather have milk directly from the breast.

also, you may have already seen this, but kellymom's page about bottle feeding the breastfed baby has links with tips for introducing a bottle.

you might also want to xp this to the breastfeeding board- there are lots of very experienced ladies there that would be glad to help.

sdlaura

Thanks, ladies. We've tried different people giving him the bottle, including when I'm out of the house, and have tried a bottle warmer and feeding him milk I had pumped just a few minutes prior. For now I think we'll focus on seeing if he'll take a pacifier, since maybe that will get him used to the sucking motion.

Megispreg

Try a Mam bottle. My pediatrician friend recommended them. I had another friend who had the same problem, and the Mam bottle worked for them too. 

sdlaura

Megispreg said:

Try a Mam bottle. My pediatrician friend recommended them. I had another friend who had the same problem, and the Mam bottle worked for them too. 

Thanks, I'll give that a shot. So far we've tried Dr. Browns, Avent, Tomee Tipee and Gerber . Luckily Day 1 of pacifier training camp went well, so hopefully he's getting more used to sucking on something other than me!