3 mth old prefers dummy to bottle

Hi, has anyone else had their baby decide they prefer their dummy to their bottle (formula fed).  He was a very hungry baby for the first couple of months but lately he has only been having half size feeds as he keeps refusing the bottle but will suck his dummy forever.  We have tried different things, ie have changed to different teats and we also try and trick him by pulling out the dummy and putting the bottle in its place which was working but now he is getting wise to this. 

Any suggestions would be most appreciated as we are getting very frustrated as you can imagine.  When he is not being fussy he is a very alert baby in all other respects and doing everything else he should be doing for his age. 

How often are you offering a bottle? We moved DS to 4 hourly feeds by 4 months of age ... perhaps you could try spacing out the feeds a bit more and see if he drinks more as a result?

Have you tried limiting dummy use to naps/nights only? We did this with DS from the beginning and it seems to have worked well for us.

And remember the guides on the formula tins are just that - babies are good self regulators and will stop drinking when they are full. No doubt he'll have another growth spurt soon enough and drain his bottle hungrily .

Good luck!

How upset does he get if you don't give him the dummy as often?

Do you think he's developing a bit of a phobia about his bottle? That happened to a friends baby - she was worried her boy wasn't drinking enough and kept on offerring him the bottle all the time. He got more and more upset by it and for a while she had to resort to letting him suck on ice-cubes just to get any liquid into him. The advice they got was to just trust that he would accept the bottle when he was hungry, and if he refused just leave it - don't let him get worked up. Have you tried waiting for say three and a quarter hours between feeds without offering him snacks, even if he didn't take much at the last feed?

He may also be old enough to drink a whole feed without you stopping him to wind him? Worth a try to see how much he drinks without interruptions?

Oh, and how do you hold him to feed? We held DS in quite an upright position from early on as it seemed to reduce wind issues.

This website has loads of useful info about bottle feeding - try the FAQ page first and then browse the other threads. I think you have to sign up to be able to do a word search on threads?

Edited by kakapo

Thanks everyone for all your comments.  He threw a massive wobbly on Sunday night and was inconsolable for an hour but then came right just as we were wondering if we should take him to hospital.  Since then he has started drinking all of his bottle again so hopefully he may have realised that his dummy isn't going to full his tummy, if not I might try a different formula or see if he is ready for solids next month to help fill him if it is the milk he has decided he doesn't like anymore.