HELP: Bottle Feeding Nightmares

Hey All. My DD has never taken a bottle well at all. She 6 months old now and for my peace of mind i would lilke her to take a bottle of Expressed Breast Milk every now and then. I am off out to a wedding this weekend and would like DD to be baby sat by her very capable Grand Parents. The only issue is she won't take a bottle and i will be out for at least 5 hours so she really will need a feed in that time.

So i have tried Nuk bottles and Phillips Avent bottles both with littles sucess. The only way she'll take to them is with hours of trying; with her sucking 5 mls or so at a time and then giving up. it takes hours to get 100mls into her. HEr grandparents don't have that much patients and will give up on it if she doesn';t take to it straight away.

So has anyone had any sucess with Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature bottles? Anyone in a similar position? Are these bottles any good before i go and waste more money on bottles DD won't take??

Will she use a sippy cup? I know Chloe didn't want to take a bottle, so someone suggested that to me. I haven't actually tried it with milk yet, but she seemed to drink some of the water when we gave her some in it.

Edit: Oh, and has someone other than you tried giving her the bottle? Apparently some babies won't have a bar of it when they can smell the "real thing" and know it's right there.

Edited by MissShell

Hi hun, you sound like your in EXACTLY the same position as I was in a month ago!

I used to only use avent bottles, and DS refused to take one, he would also take 5mls, and then push it out. I then went and bought a Tommie Tippy closer to nature bottle. He took to it much better... although I had to offer that bottle to him first before every feed for a few days until he would just drink the bottle. Even though I knew he would refuse it, I would just get him used to having it in his mouth, and then i would give him the boob.

Another thing you can try is walking around the house or the garden, so she can look at things, and the put the bottle in her mouth so she is distracted.

My plunket nurse said that often a breastfed baby will not take a bottle well, and when they do, you need to give them a bottle every day or every second day, so they dont forget how to have one.

I really hope that helps... I had the same problem, I wanted to leave him with his grandparents, but he wouldnt take it, so I worked hard the week before, with getting him to take it, and now he is great!!

Sorry about the novel.... good luck!

Thanks ladies. Bit the bullet today and went to get one. It seems to be working much better than any others i've tried. Still not 100% thou. But got 50mls extra into her tonight. and she happily drunk water out of it all day.
Think i will make an effort to express small feeds off every day for her night time feed to be bottle feed followed by a final boobie feed before bed. That way if she's getting a bottle regularily she should happily take a bottle full feed size when i am not around. ?? What do you guys think