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getting a breastfed baby to bottlefeed!

Posted July 13, 2013 - 12:54pm
I am the first time mom of an insanely awesome 3-month old lady. Despite needing and finally getting her frenulum clipped, JJ has been solely breastfed to date. We started working with a bottle at 7 weeks, as soon as she adjusted to her tongue, latching well, etc. We are at 13 weeks now and she has refused every single bottle, nipple, position, feeder, location, etc. that we could possibly think of and EVERY piece of advice we could drum up. I am the sole income provider for my family and my husband stays home with JJ. I am the Vice President of a youth development and afterschool organization and need to be in the office and back at work to support my family. This past week was my first week back fulltime and I shortened my days so I would only be gone for 7 hours (I live nearly an hour from my office - South Pasadena to Inglewood in traffic). During that time, JJ refused to eat ANYTHING... not even from a dropper or small cup. We even tried formula to see if maybe my milk didn't taste right not out of my breast. No luck. She seems to be starting to switch her schedule so that she feeds all night (we cosleep and I fed her for the large majority of the evening the last 2 nights... slept about 3 hours myself) and sleeps more during the day. I'll happily deal with not sleeping and I'm absolutely fine with needing to do that, but I eventually need to be out of the house for the full work day so I'm concerned that we are just punting the struggle. I'm also really worried about my husband and daughter and their relationship as she goes sometimes 2 hours just crying nonstop. JJ is healthy and is gaining weight well, but I dont know what to do! I naively never eve thought about this being a struggle and now I feel guilty and terrified to ever have another child as I dont want to put the baby or my family through this! I actually regret breastfeeding and I never thought that would happen! JJ is otherwise the happiest baby EVER! Any advice?!
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MichelleQ
Oh gosh... I'm so sorry you are going through this. A LOT of babies have trouble taking to the bottle... so please don't blame yourself. The only thing I can suggest is... and this sounds weird... have you tried looking for a bottle that resembles your own nipple? Someone suggested this to me once and it totally worked. Hope you're doing ok....

MommyUnwired

The exact thing that I did.  I got a bottle that resembles the nipple.  My son didn't like it, but eventually did.


SuperDuperMom

This sounds so stressful! I can't even imagine how I would feel if this were me. I've had friends who have struggled with this too and one friend would dip the bottle in sugar water before trying to get her daughter to take to it. For some reason, her daughter loved the flavor and got used to the bottle that way!