Refused the bottle/ not ready to wean

Y

yuukalim0404

Registered User
My baby is one years old and has been exclusively bf and takes EBM via bottle only from my MIL.
She has rejected the bottle feed from me, hubby eversince newborn,2mths, 6mths and just tonight.( we tried at various times before).

Problem is MIL wants me to wean her off the breast and since last week has taken care of baby in her house while I was sick. I had pumped and dumped while on medications.
Now baby is back at home, I resumed bf because I thought she wasn't ready to wean from her reaction and eagerness to bf.

However, my let down and milk is less due to the one week window of not bf, only pumping and so she sucks, pulls off, cries, then sucks again....the cycle repeats. And it is eapecially bad at night because she usually bf then falls asleep. I then tried to give her a bottle of frozen milk out of desperation, but she absolutely refused, lots of screaming, failing and crying, and daddy failed too.
In the end, after a struggle more than one hour, she finally felt asleep on my breast, tired out.

I guess my question is I shouldn't be weaning her now? If I really need to wean, any way to make her accept EBM or formula via bottle.If I use a cup, I am not sure if she will take much as she usually drinks 1oz water or less with that. And I think she also associate sucking with sleeping.

Thanks, just need to validate my thoughts, it was a terrible ordeal just few minutes ago and I felt like telling my MIL " see I was right she's just NOT ready to wean!!"
 
at one year, you can try regular cow's milk from a sippy cup.

my daughter also associated sleeping with sucking and only in the past two weeks (she is 2 yr 7 m old!) have i been able to get her off of a bottle at bedtime.

remember, by one year a baby should be getting most of her nutrition from solids, not from milk. (that is not to say you should stop milk altogether, but not as much emphasis needs to be placed on it.)

it is really up to you whether you wean or not, but also remember that often babies that breastfeed may not want to wean until they are much older. it is up to you and baby how long you BOTH wish to continue.

as for milk supply, just as when baby was younger, the more you feed, the more you produce. so, just keep latching on and eventually you will re-establish a milk supply (but chances are you will not need as much as when baby was younger).

also remember, that often babies will cry and fight when they want something that comforts them (such as the breast). it sounds to me like your baby is not breastfeeding for nutrition, but rather for comfort. if that is the case, then no matter when you decide to wean, you will probably have a few nights or even a week of tears.

sorry, that probably doesn't make you feel better.
 
Cara,
agree baby needs the breast for comfort more than food. Already tried cow's milk in sippy this afternoon, she took 1-2 sips and lost interest!
Anyway, will continue to latch and keep my fingers crossed...
 
it will take your baby a while to get used to the sippy cup yuukalim0404, so I wouldn't give it up altogether just because she didn't have any interest the first time....i am working on weaning my baby from the bottle and in the process, I have bought like 4 different sippy cups...finally I think I have found a winner! She doesn't hate the cup anymore and will drink a bit from it (of course not enough) since my baby is 1 I will use more juices (dilulted of course) to put in the cup so that she will be more excited about using the cup, and then eventually when she is happy to use the cup, put milk in it for her so that she can use that cup exclusively for drinking (milk).

if you still want to BF then I agree with Carang says, the more you feed the more you will have milk flow! Good luck!
 
Also try a straw cup - my daughter is 11 months and couldn't figure out a sippy cup at all, but figured out the straw immediately. I think maybe because she's been exclusively breastfed, she doesn't realise that you need to tip stuff up for the water to come out ;)
 
Do you want to wean? I think if you're not ready, and your baby is not ready, then why wean for your MIL?

At 12 mnths your baby's main source of nutrition should still be breastmilk- around 75% of a 12mnth old child's diet should be from BM, so it is still very important and continues to provide substantial health benefits. This drops to about 50% at 18mths. Of course this depends on the child. My son is 19mnths and some days (like now when he's teething) he barely eats any solids at all.

If you want her to take a bottle, I second nicolejoy's suggestion of a straw cup. My son loves those and got the hang of them quickly, unlike the spill proof sippy cups which are practically impossible to figure out!
 
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