baby rejecting bottle from MOMMY

C

clowe77

Registered User
Hi All,

My 11 week old has just in the past week began to really reject the bottle when I feed her from it. He is fed on about 80% breastmilk and 20% formula. With the bottle (whether it is expressed milk or formula), he just screams and cries and throws his head back as soon as I try to put it in his mouth. He pushes it out with his tongue and milk oozes out... I only use the bottle to top up some of his key feeds throughout the day, because I know my breastmilk supply is not enough for him anymore.

When he is really hungry he will sometimes take 1-2 oz MAX from the bottle, but were I to put him back on my breast, he will suck and suck hungrily...

The same thing happens when my husband tries to feed him from the bottle, but when my HELPER tried feeding him today, he just GULPED the stuff down.

Wonder if any of you have had the same or similar experience with baby rejecting bottle from mommy (and even daddy!) but not from a 3rd party... I reckon he rejects it from me because he associates me with BREAST (which is preferable obviously) and maybe he associates daddy with mommy (and thus the breast by connection??) Not sure...
 
Yes, my baby was the same way. Well, more that he rejected the bottle from me starting from around 10 weeks until he was weaned off my breast. He was purely breastfed. I use to be able to feed him from the bottle in the middle of night (I just wanted to make sure that he was taking enough milk at night and not just sucking for comfort). But then one day he stopped taking the bottle from me and demanded my breast. My helper was always able to feed him from the bottle though. And eventually by the time he was 6 months, he self-weaned himself off my breast and only wanted bottles. At that point, he started taking the bottle from me again. I don't really have an explanation for any of this but in the end it all worked out fine.
 
Thanks Wenyihsu! I guess when they are younger (but old enough to understand that Mommy = Breast) they prefer the skin to skin contact of breastfeeding and then as they get a bit older hey don't mind the plastic teat anymore - that's the only explanation I can think of :-)

I don't mind really - I like breastfeeding him. Just wanted to make sure I'm not doing something wrong with the bottle...
 
Oh one question Wenyihsu - did your little one reject the bottle from Daddy too?? I can understand why my baby rejects from me but I don't really understand why he also rejects from daddy when he is all right with our helper...
 
At 2 months old my LO rejected the bottle (previously I had expressed 1 bottle for her father to feed her per evening; all other feeds were breastfeeds) from everyone (father, grandmother, helper), and never took one again.

We were able to get her to start taking a sippy cup/straw cup starting at 6 months old, but only for a bit of water or for an occasional expressed milk feed.
 
Hi clowe77, he didn't always take a bottle from my husband - some days he would and some other days he wouldn't. It also depended if I was around. If I were around, then he definitely wanted my breast. But then again, these days he doesn't always like it when my husband tries to feed him. I think it's just that very early on he associated Daddy with play so when my husband tries to feed him now, all he wants to do is to play.

If it's important to you that Daddy be able to feed baby with a bottle, as long as you keep on insisting and trying, eventually baby will give in. Good luck.
 
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