Weaning a boobie lover!!

Hi sparkle

I am not too sure if this will help but Lauren out right refused the bottle with breastmilk or formula until about 2 months ago. To get her to take it I gave her the empty bottle to play with. Then a few days later while she was playing I noticed she was sucking on the teat, so I put a bit of water in it for her to drink and/or play with to help her get to understand the whole bottle concept. A few days later I then introduced the milk into the bottle, just 100mls, then would top her up on me for the remainder of the feed.

Now she takes a whole feed in a bottle, BUT I cannot feed it to her at all. She has to lay on the floor AND feed herself. If I put her in my lap and give her a snuggle while taking a bottle, she will not have a bar of it! She will not take a bottle for anyone, very independant my wee girl obviously!

So, I am still b/f all feeds except for her afternoon feed at around 4pm. I too am slowly weaning, and am happy just to have dropped one feed at this stage.

Anwyay, my story may not be of any use to you at all, but just thought I would share my stubborn baby's experience with a bottle!

Good luck!

So does Cooper take his water bottle with water in it, and drink it fine? Just curious, as I want to start weaning Jett as well, but he doesn't even suck from the teat from his sipper cup. He just chews on it and then turns it upside-down and sucks on the bottom!!

I'm wanting to do the same thing, with the same time frame, weaned completely by 1 yr (I did this with the other 2 as well). By 7.5 months with R and G I was starting to drop a feed a day and they both took a bottle fine.

There was only one time Jett took a bottle and that was when he was very little, around 2 months and with formula (funnily enough he never reacted to it either). I'm and trying to give Jett his sipper cup everytime he has finger foods, and see if he'll gradually get the idea he needs to drink from it, not play with it.

Sorry, no help from me, just saying I'm in the same boat!

Kate is on probiotics at the moment and it needs to be dissolved in liquid so I bought a bottle of organic follow on formula to do it- mainly because I'm a little concerned about her weight so wanted to get a few extra calories in her if possible. I gave it to her for the first time on Tuesday- after her dinner, out of her tommee tippy sippy cup (which she usually has her water out of) and she drank it up fine. I still gave her her normal breastfeed before bed but its nice to know that she will take milk out of a cup if the need ever arises.

What I'm trying to say is maybe instead of replacing a feed you could experiment with a few different bottles, cups etc and different times so he gets used to drinking milk out of a cup or bottle. Once hes drinking a snack fine then you could look at replacing a feed with it.

How many time does he b'feed in 24 hours? Why not replace his afternoon b'feeding with a snack of solids perhaps?

We spent about 3 weeks playing around with different bottles and teats before we found ones that cath like. I now have about two types of avent bottles, 3 types of avent teats, tommee tippee bottles and teats too. And she took milk from bottles found at the warehouse (long thin ones) and PUR teats.   Some bubbas just take to a bottle so easily and others seem to fight it all the way (well they did in my coffeegroup).

Cath always seemed to do better when i was with other mums feeding their kids formula. I don't think she really got the idea until she watched other kids. Even then it took another fortnight or so for her to accept it totally. Very frustrating for both of us. I like the idea of playing with the bottle.

I kept the warehouse bottles for formula and a TT sippy soft spout cup for water only.

thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

I'm still persevering. We've got the tt close to nature ones but I'll get another kind to try today in the shopping.

I've been giving him a bottle to play with too, but he's yet to put it in his mouth!!!

Last night DH had a go with it in his sippy cup. He'd grab the handles put it in his mouth and then realise what it was!

I'll keep at it...........really don't want to be bfing a 15 year old!

Sparkle, I've just tried a trick with Jett so thought I'd share and see if you have any success with it.

I know that with Jett, if I'm eating or drinking he wants it as well. Sooo, with the bottle, I thought you could either have your own bottle (empty or with water perhaps) yourself, or have baby's bottle and sit with baby on your lap and drink from your bottle. See if baby is interested, and offer his bottle to him. I did it with the older kids, had them drink from the bottle, and Jett happily took a few gulps from it as well, after watching them.

sparkle, have you tried different brands of formula? Lauren did the same thing and she ended up only taking the Heinz Nurture, the rest of them she spat, gagged and carried on like I was feeing her poison!

Just a suggestion!

Trying not to get too frustrated is almost a mantra for me LOL!

So far we've tried S26 (I think that's what it's called? in a carton anyway)
Karicare Birth
Karicare Gold Follow on
Heinz Nuture

Pretty much all the ones that come in a trial pack! I don't want to be buying whole tins if he's not going to like them!

I mixed some of the S26 in with his cereal this morning (which incidently turned it into concrete!) and he wouldn't even take that.

i have heard that S26 is the closest tasting to breastmilk. my 20mth old son stil breast feeds. well, in sayin that, apart from a few sucks he hasn't relaly the last few days. but if he asks, i'm nto saying no. But since he is old enough, he tends to haev a bottle with flavoured milk at night. means we get a nice long snuggle, and he has a full tummy. i found it was helping him sleep thru til 7.30 ish from 8ish. he hated bottles as a baby, only had two formula bottles, and a couple of expressed milk bottles. funny thing is, a few months ago he found them and started sucking from them, so i put water in. i give him the flavoured mega milk as he doesn't eat a lot during the day and i feel that hopefully this will help boost his vitamins etc. sorry i guess that's not much help, but yea, that's what we do. and up until just recently, he would snuggle in bed in da am for a feed, and also had one going to bed.