Expert: Sally Wendkos Olds - 5/27/2008

Question
my baby is now coming up to 5 months old.i have breast fed exclusively since birth. I have tried to introduce him to the bottle by expressing milk or using formula, put he rejects it all the time. i have tried many types of bottles and cups but hes not interested. i am now expressing about 2oz so that my husband can try and feed him, my baby just plays with the nipple. i am getting quite anxious and upset now as i no longer want to breast feed. He is up every 2-3 hrs at night. if we are out in the day he can last up to 3 hrs, if we are home he wants a feed every hour.it is just getting to much. i want to start to give him food, but all say i have to wait until 6 months. i just cant take breast feeding anymore. please help me

Answer
Dear Cham,

First, congratulations for giving your son the best start in life by breastfeeding him!

Many babies are like your son in not wanting to take formula -- or anything -- from a bottle -- they just love that breast! However, even the most resistant babies will eventually take a bottle, or go directly to a cup. I am attaching an excerpt from my book (see below) with suggestions for persuading your son to take a bottle.

As far as the solid foods are concerned: Although the ideal, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, is nothing but breast milk for the first six months, I know that many pediatricians do encourage mothers of some babies to start solids at four months. Talk to your doctor and since you are only one month away from that ideal, she or he will probably give you some good advice about which foods to offer your son. The usual first foods are rice cereal (to which you can add formula), fruits, and vegetables.

Good luck!

Sally
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Sally Wendkos Olds
Author, THE COMPLETE BOOK OF BREASTFEEDING: Eiger & Olds, 3rd edition 1999, published by Workman Publishing & Bantam Books, and available in most public libraries, bookstores & La Leche League chapters. Now in revision for a fourth edition, with Laura M. Marks, M.D.
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Offering Your Baby the Bottle
• Introduce the cup or bottle when your baby is not frantically hungry.
• Some babies have definite preferences for one kind of nipple over another. Others don’t care. Try a contoured nipple (like the Nuk or the Kip), but just buy one or two in case your baby doesn’t like it. Be sure not to buy nipples especially made for premature infants if your baby is full-term; these nipples are made of thinner rubber, and some vigorous suckers have been known to bite pieces off and swallow them.
• Try to find “blind” nipples, which don’t have holes in them; then you can make your own hole with a hot straight pin, to ensure that the milk won’t come too quickly.
• To test the flow of milk, hold the bottle upside down. If milk pours out, the nipple opening is too big; if it doesn’t squirt out when you squeeze the nipple with your fingers, it’s too small. In the first case, there’s nothing you can do other than throw the nipple out; in the second, you can make an additional hole or two with a hot straight pin.

What If Your Baby Refuses the Bottle?
Your baby may absolutely refuse to take any nourishment from a bottle. Some go on “hunger strikes” if they can’t have the breast; no matter how ravenous they get or how piteously they cry, they won’t give in. Families cope with this in a number of different ways. One of the following may work for you:
• Nurse as much as possible while you’re home, so even if your baby won’t take a bottle while you’re gone, she’ll still be getting a good supply of milk.
• Brush your baby’s mouth with the nipple and let him grasp it himself instead of pushing it forcefully into his mouth.
• Warm the bottle nipple and the milk to body temperature by running warm water over the nipple and the bottle. Do not warm milk in a microwave -- you can get hot spots, which can burn your baby's mouth.
• Ask someone else to pick up your baby while she’s sleeping, but almost ready to wake, and feed her milk in a bottle. Do this for a while, and then try it when she’s awake.
• If you have not already offered your baby milk or water from a cup, try offering him water first. Once he takes that readily, he’ll probably also take milk this way. You don’t need a special cup to do this. Any cup in your house will do, although the infant “sipper” cups with two handles and a lid are the least messy.
• Feed the milk through a large medicine dropper or a spoon—rubber-coated or plastic. Sometimes, once the baby has received a couple of ounces of milk this way and is not so desperately hungry, he’ll be willing to tolerate the bottle for the rest of the feeding.
• Experiment with different kinds of milk. One mother discovered that her baby preferred fresh, refrigerated breast milk over thawed frozen milk. If you’re feeding formula, try another brand, after consulting with your baby’s doctor.
• Experiment with different feeding positions. Try propping your baby against your raised legs, or holding him facing out. (We don’t know why this works, but some babies feed better this way.)