Hellobee Boards

I think daycare providers are very good at getting babies to take bottles- this definitely won't be the first baby they've ever had who refuses.

One thing to check is to make sure you don't have high lipase in your milk, which can cause a sour/soapy taste and can cause baby to refuse the bottle. If you're okay with doing it, taste a small amount of your milk a couple days or even a couple hours after expressing. The time lag is different for every mom with high lipase, but if this does end up being your issue, you can scald the milk right after you pump it. A mom I know was able to do this at work with a little portable heating device (can't remember exactly what it was called).

They were talking about this today at the BF group I go to-the other moms said their babies had to go a long stretch (one went all day) before taking a bottle. Like they kept waiting for mom to show up and just had to be really hungry

We did a bottle boot camp the weekend before my LO started day care. I would pump and DH would feed her. It would take an hour but she finally took it. Then it took a couple weeks at day care before she got the hang of it.

@yellowbird: My DS did this when I went back to work - he was home with DH and reverse cycled for 5 days - it was exhausting but short lived!

@yellowbird: ((hugs)) I feel your pain!!! DD fauggt the bottle sooo hard and even after skipping feeds and bottle boot camp still refused we have time still as I do not go back to work until end of July, but will say many have told me you will be surprised what they do at daycare without their parents!

I know how hard it will be to not only leave LO but also with the anxiety of them not eating!
Hang in there!

@yellowbird: He won't starve in a few hours. I had to go nurse at my lunch break for the first week or two also. He started doing ok with the bottles and then we figured out he was actually refusing the bottle to hold out for lunch time nursing. So that is when I stopped going at lunch and sure enough he started taking the bottles.

We found he liked the MAM nipple best. Its different than any other bottle we found. Wide Base, flattened tip, and a short tip. We packed the milk in those bottles but also sent a few other brands that daycare could try if they wanted.

@yellowbird: DD2 would NOT take a bottle from anyone at home. Not me, not daddy, not nil, not FIL. I was really worried she would starve the first few days. But first day of daycare she took all her bottles no problem.

I have been back at work over a week now. Baby (5m) took the occasional bottles during my leave, but oddly enough after the first few times that dad fed him, usually I would be the one giving them and I think I was more persistant. Because the first day I left him more than a couple hours with his dad, he refused the bottle and screamed for two hours straight! Then for the first week or so, he'd drink maybe an ounce or two, working up to 4 ounces the entire time I was gone. Added to the stress was I am away at bedtime, and I nurse to sleep. I tried the week before I went back to do little mini boot camps, for a few hours in the afternoon or at bedtime other nights and the memory seems now like unnecessary trauma and stress and worry my last precious days with him. By my 6th shift, he drank 4 bottles while I was gone! I don't know if he needed the practice to get to that point so what I did the week before helped or not.

But in hindsight, I would have tried to relax and enjoy my time while making sure to try two small bottles each day. I wasted so much milk on bottle practice! Now that he seems to have gotten the hang of it I am worried I won't be able to pump enough to keep up. He's a big big boy!