Getting baby to take bottle - cold turkey?

[murphyleith]

Hi there, my daughter is 5 months and currently breastfed with a couple of teaspoons of solids a day at lunch usually.
I'm really trying to get her to take a bottle and have tried every tip in the discussions above on different teats/times/positions/rooms/formula/expressed - you name it! 
Was wondering about going cold turkey - my husband is willing to try tomorrow and the next day & I will go away to maybe ease transition.
I was just wondering if anyone had any positive advice on this and if there were any guidelines on how long a baby can go hungry without harm (she is 12lbs3 if its relevant).
Thanks for any advice. Colette

[Erin M]

Hi, we didn't go cold turkey, but what worked for us was for me to offer a bottle each and every time she fed before I BF her....sometimes I would have DH do it, but I usually did.  She rejected it faithfully for more than two weeks, then once day actually decided to take it and had no problems accepting the bottle after that.  I know if you're under a time crunch (going back to work or something like that) you might have to try the "cold turkey" approach, but just wanted to let you know that we managed to avoid it through very consistently offering the bottle.  I think my DD was about the same age as yours when we did this.

[evelyn]

Hi.  I posted practically the exact same post about 6 weeks ago!!!
Inthe end we didnt do it, we just kept trying her, she eventually took a dreamfeed from a haberman bottle, so we kept that up for a week, and then we tried her when she was awake.....and result!!!!  Now she will take up to 5oz from a bottle and i am back at work.
Most of the advice i got at the time was not to try the cold turkey method, i know we very nearly came to it though, but i was really dreading it!  I know it has worked for some too.  Sorry i cant offer a definitive answer.  Love

[rach]

I can remember getting quite anxious that my dd wouldn't take a bottle when I was due to go back to work.  What worked for us was to use the haberman bottle and when she started to fuss over taking the bottle, we stood up with her still in the feeding position and gently jiggled her to take her mind off the fact that she was fussing.  She then took the bottle no problem.

We saw that method on an episode of the baby whisperer where Tracy was helping out a mum who was having the exact same problems.

HTHs

Rach xx

[murphyleith]

Thanks for your replies. In case anyone else looks at this for info we did it and it was succesful! She held out for ten hours without showing any signs of concern at all - completely happy and refused the bottle on the hour every hour (my partner did it, I stayed away and he just tried for about five minutes each time). Then at 10.5 hours she started crying he tried the bottle again and bingo! it worked. She has been taking it fine ever since (the haberman feeder by the way). Fingers crossed it stays that way 

[daisymelan]

Thanks for the update.  I'm happy it all worked out for everyone.