Getting a Breastfed Baby to Take a Bottle of Breast Milk (Mom to Mom #13)
As a follow-up question to this one about breast milk storage guidelines, I got this question:
My husband was supposed to feed the baby with my breastmilk while I was away but I came home too early and now, the baby would not bottlefeed. He probably sensed me. Unfortunately, the breastmilk got wasted. So how do I prevent something like this from happening again? Likewise, how do we get the baby to bottlefeed even when I’m around?
I know lots of women have struggled with this issue, whether it’s just the occasional bottle of breast milk while mom’s away or the need for baby to take a bottle during the day when mom goes back to work full-time.
How did you get your baby to take a bottle (even when you’re around)? If you found something that worked better than bottle feeding, what are some alternatives?
Tags: bottle-feeding, breastfeeding, lactation, Mom-to-Mom, pumpingRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Mom-to-Mom, breast milk, breastfeeding, pumping
11 opinions for Getting a Breastfed Baby to Take a Bottle of Breast Milk (Mom to Mom #13)
Maria
Mar 23, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Unfortunately, I’m not sure we ever got past this. My husband was supposed to give one bottle a day to help this along, but he never got it done. He would hand the baby to me…straight from the tap. We eventually got him to take a bottle at daycare, but it was hard, sporadic and short-lived, though switching to the adiri natural nurser did help a lot. He would even take that one with me around, but not from me. Unfortunately, I discovered them “late” in the process, so after a few months, he stopped the bottle at daycare all together and went to the sippy cup (around 13 months).
Good luck.
Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Mar 23, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Maria, thanks for your thoughts on the trying different types of bottles/nipples. I think even the sippy cup would be something to try early on too (valve in or valve out, which makes it easier but messier). Sometimes a baby will drink from a sippy when the bottle is just too much of a reminder of feeding from a real nipple.
Shannon
Mar 24, 2008 at 9:33 am
While I can understand how frustrating it must have been to go to the effort of pumping without then feeding the milk to the baby, why not rejoice that baby was able to take his meals from the source instead of lament the “wasted” milk?
Darra
Mar 24, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Try some of the larger nipples, like Playtex “natural latch” which are shaped more like mom’s anatomy. At first I tried the Medela nipples with my baby, since I used that kind of pump, but those were too small. He took to the Playtex ones right away, and still nurses enthusiastically when I am home from work. Just buy several kinds until you find one that your baby likes; maybe he will be happy with a different flow rate as well (medium instead of slow, for example).
Grace
Mar 24, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Shannon, I hear you! Breastmilk and mama’s breasts are best. It’s bonding and all that. Still, there are times when mommy needs to take a break from the baby. Having the baby to bottlefeed might also be a bonding time with the other caregiver - i.e., Dad.
MomOnTheGo
Mar 25, 2008 at 6:53 am
My daughter would never take a bottle but from an early age - maybe 6 months? - she would drink a bit from one of those Rubbermaid “drink boxes”. Breast fed babies are really good with straws, at least I have noticed this to be true.
Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Mar 25, 2008 at 6:59 am
I’ve found the same thing to be true about breastfed babies and straws! Good suggestion!
aibee
Mar 29, 2008 at 8:21 pm
My son was exclusively breastfed from the source (ie me ;) ) for the first six months, and getting him to take the bottle AT ALL after all that breastfeeding was initially a bit of a challenge.
If “by a bit of a challenge” I mean “a total screamfest”.
What worked for us was getting him started on the breast for a few minutes until he was in that single minded blissed out and feeding state, and once there, I slipped the bottle’s teat into his mouth alongside my own nipple (in much the same way you might slip your finger into your baby’s mouth if you need to adjust the latch or whatnot), and then I slowly and gently eased my fine self out aaaaand, Voila! Bottle feeding baby.
I think the key tips are “slowly” and “gently” because if I’d jammed the teat in too fast, or had I abruptly whipped my hooter out of there, I think he would have cottoned on to the ruse being pulled on him. We might just have been lucky, but that was the only time I needed to be there to pull the old breast-to-bottle switcheroo on him. He wasn’t often given a bottle anyway, so the whole exercise was mainly so his grandma had something to crow about (”I fed the baby!” etc) but I guess some babies might need a little more practice to understand that bottles can give ‘em all the breastmilk they need too. ;)
Try it though. It’s not a trick I ever read about in any parenting literature, so I’m not sure how universally spectacularly effective it might be, but it WAS spectacularly effective for us.
Ashley
Apr 3, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I agree with aibee, “slowly” and “gently” works best. We tried nearly every single bottle and nipple with my son, including the Adiri breast-shaped bottle which only derived an “imposter!” scream from him. We also tried having other people (grandma, his aunt) feed him, to no avail.
So over a (very rough) period of 2-3 weeks, we attempted to feed him one bottle a day, using the same type of nipple as his paci (the brown Nuks) when he was in a calm mood and not overly hungry.
So either the daycare teachers would try to gently feed him and take the bottle out of his mouth as soon as he got upset; or my husband would try to give him a bottle while I left the house (infants can smell you).
He of course completely protested and ended up going for hours at daycare without a drop of milk. But, like any baby that is wise enough to know when he’s not getting the “real deal,” he also knew he didn’t want to starve. A couple of days of hunger strikes (coupled with non-stop nighttime nursing sessions to make up for it) ended the nonsense and he now takes the bottle with no problem.
One odd thing — many people may tell you that the a bottle-protesting infant will not take a bottle from the nursing mother. However, I found that I was the only person that could feed my son the bottle in the beginning, he wouldn’t take it from anyone else. So, each baby is different — you really have to play around and see how what tricks seem to loosen your baby up a bit.
Also, you really need to start your baby on bottle feeding expressed milk around 5 - 6 weeks, and no later, otherwise it’s very difficult to get them to switch over. Be calm and persistent and you’ll get through it. Good Luck!!!
Aisha
Apr 15, 2008 at 6:15 pm
We tried every suggestion in the book and 7 or 8 different bottles. We gave up and started training her on a sippy cup at 4 months. It took a few weeks. After we saw her drink juice from the cup but refuse milk from the cup, we knew she was just being stubborn. There was a little bit (just a little bit!) of crying, but now she loves her sippy cup.
The best sippy cup is by Gerber NUK. It has a soft spout that I haven’t found on any other cup and is designed to transition from breast or bottle to cup. Also, I tried the First Years BreastFlow bottle. I think it’s the best bottle out there for breastfed babies. She sort of liked that one and I think we could have got her on it if we’d started with that.
The main problem for us was that my baby was VERY independent and didn’t like that the bottles wouldn’t let her control the flow. The sippy cup lets her control the flow of milk like she does at the breast. She also preferred latex or super soft silicone. The NUK sippy cup and the BreastFlow bottle are the only ones with SUPER soft silicone that’s almost like latex. I saw one other nipple that supposedly let the baby control the flow, but it was hard silicone.
Try the sippy cup. Ppl are amazed that my baby could use a cup at 5 months, but I think it’s bc ppl never try to give the baby a cup.
Maria
Apr 16, 2008 at 3:29 am
If you are avoiding BPA, Gerber might not be the way to go. http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2007/11/z-report-bpa-gerber.html
Also– the natural nurser is most like momma’s breast– shape and softness…and it warms with the milk.
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