Ideas for shaking up BT routine to incorporate bottle?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I wasn't sure where to post this so apologies if it's in the wrong place.

My son is almost 11 weeks old and is ebf except for a bottle of formula for the df which my husband gives.  I'd like to give a bottles of expressed milk at bedtime (or top up bf) partly as a confidence thing so that if he's drained both boobs and then won't settle for bed I'm sure it's not hunger related,  and partly so we have a bit more flexibility over bedtime with my daughter. The trouble is he absolutely refuses a bottle at bedtime, despite having one for the df each day.

I'm pretty sure the issue is routine related.  We're going to try giving him a bottle this weekend to check but I'm wondering if we should change his BT routine slightly to work a bottle in somewhere so it's not so strange to him and we're not just doing a straight bf to bottle feed swap. I'm not sure how to do it though.  He's often tired and hungry so already crying before the BT feed starts so that doesn't seem to be the best time to try it (and indeed his crying escalates when he sees the bottle), but if i offer it during or after a bf he's either not interested or starts crying again. He did actually take 3ozs formula at the end of a bf a few nights ago but since then seems to have developed an aversion to it.

Our current routine is bath, pj's, feed, blind down, white noise on, cuddle and bed. Any ideas on where best to try the bottle?

Also, I think he's currently in a leap.  If so, would we be best putting the bedtime bottles away for a week then trying again? If so, how?

[Erin M]

Also, I think he's currently in a leap.  If so, would we be best putting the bedtime bottles away for a week then trying again? If so, how?

If he's got lots of developmental stuff going on right now, he might just need the closeness from nursing. 

You can try switching your feed so it comes before the bath -- that way if he's not quite as tired he might accept it more readily. 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Thanks.  Yes,  that would be a good time to try.  We'll have a go tonight.  In the meantime I've just taken my daughter out so my husband can get jack up from his nap and offer a bottle but he wasn't having any of it Going to keep trying before every feed today and tomorrow and on and on i guess til he takes it!  Should we back down if he gets worked up (which is basically straight away)? I'm really paranoid about putting him off having it at the dream feed.

[Erin M]

At that age, I would back down if he gets upset.  He's too little to be forcing the bottle issue right now. 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yeah, that's what we've been doing.  He's being very random about it.  He did take the bottle again at 4ish yesterday - only an oz cos that's all I'd put in the bottle and finished off with bf as usual.  He then refused a bottle again at bath and bedtime and was funny about taking the dream feed from it as well (but did have almost 6ozs when he finally accepted it.  It seems very hit and miss but we'll keep offering it i suppose until it gets more consistent.  Maybe it'll improve when the leap's over,  if that's what it is.  I'm also thinking that if we can get him to accept it in the day, then we can work on moving it til bedtime....