Baby suddenly refusing to drink from teat / bottle. Only wants breast. Any ideas? | ExpatWoman.com
 

Baby suddenly refusing to drink from teat / bottle. Only wants breast. Any ideas?

35
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 08 July 2013 - 00:17

One of my twins - nearly 12 weeks - 8 weeks adjusted age - has just decided that he will not drink from a bottle teat anymore. He screams and cries and will only take a few sucks. I have to put him on the breast to make sure be feeds. Normally he will drink expressed milk from a bottle for all his night feeds. I can't physically breast feed him at night plus feed other twin unless I go into negative sleep. I'm only managing 1-3 hours per night as it is.

Does anyone have any suggestions. Or is there a better teat for me to try? I've tried 2 dif shaped Avent teats so far. Both unsuccessful. Quite perplexed re sudden refusal as he's been drinking his night feeds from bottles for ages.

35
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 13 July 2013 - 14:34
I've changed to size 2 teats and my husband gives him the bottle and this seems to be ok. He will refuse the bottle from me though.
26
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 10 July 2013 - 20:36
Our baby preferred Tommy Tippy teats when we used to do the odd formula feed early on, then he caught on anyway that it wasn't the breast at about 3.5 months and would not really take the bottle. I was trying to introduce more formula feeds as I wanted to wean him off the breast at 4 months. In our case, we tried diff formulas and found one which he seemed to slightly prefer but in the end, it probably took a week or so (and my husband doing some more of the bottle feeding) for our little one to fully adjust to the teat for the majority of feeds.
2782
Posts
EW EXPERT
Latest post on 09 July 2013 - 23:49
It still could be a formula reaction even with the ebm refusal as they basically don't know what's in the bottle, they have just come to realise that the previous times they drank from the bottle they had pain afterwards. Reflux can lead to all sorts of oral aversions with refusal of bottle, breast and solids depending on triggers etc. Of course it might just be a preference but given you noticed what looked like a reaction when you first tried the formula, I'd look into it. At this age the reflux is often silent ( as in no spitting up) but still very painful. Dairy intolerance is a very common cause of reflux, my son didn't tolerate much in the way of dairy until after 12 months. Can you husband feed the other twin at night if he is tolerating bottles fine, or could you breastfeed one while bottle feeding the other at the same time? I know all about sleep deprivation :( but can't even imagine how much more taxing it must be with two babies!!!
35
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 08 July 2013 - 10:59
Yes that was me. Not sure if it's formula as he refuses the bottle when it's got breast milk in it too. Will check re reflux although other baby has silent reflux and I thought this baby was the reflux free one so we'll see. Thankyou kiwispiers
2782
Posts
EW EXPERT
Latest post on 08 July 2013 - 08:25
Two thoughts, was it you posting recently about introducing formula? ( apologies if it wasn't) a lot if babies with cows milk intolerance respond with reflux and gastro pain following feeds which can eventually lead to bottle refusal as they associate the bottle with pain. Alternatively it's fairly common for mixed feed babies to develop a preference at around this age, often it's for bottle and you wind up with a nursing strike but sometimes it's for breast. I would rule out allergies reflux first though.
 
 

ON EXPATWOMAN TODAY