From breast to bottle - gradual weaning not working.

[HBabyG]

I am having a real problem weaning my 5 month old DD from breast to bottle and am starting to question what is the best thing to do.  Please offer some advice, anything, I'm so confused.  I would like to be able to gradually reduce her breastfeeds by replacing them with a bottle and be completely weaned by 6 or 7 months.  Her normal feed times are 8am, 11.30am, 2.30pm, 6pm

Here is the background: I have some experience of moving from breast to bottle with DD1 - after a couple of days of DH offering a bottle instead of breast at all feeds (and me pumping) DD1 took the bottle happily and then I could combine feed for a while until I gradually reduced breastfeeds until all feeds were bottles at 7 months.  With DD2 it is not going like that at all.  After using the same approach she has taken the bottle, and at times has downed a full 8oz bottle fairly quickly, not gulping, no milk spilling out, looks like a baby that has always had a bottle.  The problem is that she will go hours not taking the bottle when offered when I know she must be hungry and then ends the day not having taken enough milk and is starting to wake hungry in the night.  She doesn't complain about the bottle and will chew the teat when the bottle is offered but only seems to take milk from it several hours after her normal feed time, so not really replacing a normal feed at all.  Today for example I fed her at 8am and 11.30pm (normal times) and then offered a bottle at 2.30pm but only took 4oz at 5.30pm and no 6pm feed.  I am confused about what to do.  Am I doing the right thing?  If the gradual weaning is not working should I stop breastfeeding altogether and give all feeds on the bottle?  It seems so sudden but it feels like doing things gradually is only confusing her as she seems to be able to wait the bottle out until she is really really hungry.

Does anyone have any similar experiences or advice?

[Lolly]

Have you started her on solids yet? I would think that at 2.30 she just wasn't hungry enough, it was only 3 hours since her previous feed - did she take anything at 2.30?

Laura

[HBabyG]

Thank you for your reply.  No she's not on solids yet.  She didn't take anything at 2.30 but held on until 5.30, and then only took 4oz but was offered 8oz.  Of course not knowing how much she'd have as a breastfeed it's hard to compare, but surely she would need more than this.  I think you're right that she wasn't hungry enough at 2.30pm but this is the time when she would normally have a breastfeed and I was thinking of sticking to those timings.  Do you think I need to adjust the routine to make replacing a feed with the bottle work?

[*Kara*]

Hello

Just noticed that your DD is 5 months old and not on a 4 hr routine as of yet... It's common for BF babies to never get to a 4 hr spread between feeds, but bottle fed babies do make the leap sooner than the normal 4 months of age... I would suggest pushing her feeds out to a 4 hr routine and see if that gets her hungry enough for her milk.. at this age, 4 hrs would be completely typical with formula fed babies.

So if her first milk is at 8am, follow it with 12 noon, 4pm and then her BT feed just before going down for the night (most babies will still take a full feed right before bed even if it's been a bit less than 4 hrs.

What do you think?

[HBabyG]

Hi Kara, Thank you for your reply.  I did make some changes to her feed times as suggested to ensure she was hungry enough to take the bottle.  It didn't seem to make any difference to her reaction to the bottle - still chewed the teat etc.  I (and also DH) tried her with the bottle first thing in the morning when she hadn't fed since 6pm the night before - surely she must've been hungry enough - she waited 2 hours after her normal feed time and then only took 3 oz, and predictably was hungry again an hour or so later. 

I have decided to take a break from the bottle for now.  It was leading to a stressed out mummy - DD1 has nursery and activities that we need to get to and it just wasn't working the time I needed to spend offering DD2 the bottle.  I will see how we get on with solids and then may consider offering the bottle or possibly a sippy cup of milk at a later stage.

Thank you for your reply though.

[*Kara*]

No worries hun... there are so many babies that are just not willing to take a bottle until they decide they are ready... give it a break for a while (could be that everyone is too stressed out!) and try again another time.

Just a question though: why are you weaning her?  Are you going back to work or just thinking it would be more convenient?

[Fiver]

Just a thought, what size teat are you using?  I knew we needed to move to a different one with DS when he started chewing on them rather than eating.  Usually if you're combining BF and bottle feeding we would suggest sticking with a stage 1, but if you're weaning anyway, it's not so much of an issue.

[HBabyG]

I was using the variflow teat with the TT Closer to Nature bottles.  This had worked well and at times had managed to take a full 8oz bottle fairly quickly (about the same time as it takes her to bf - she's very efficient) without choking or gagging.  What I found confusing was that she would have a bf pretty much at any time, and maybe just take a small amount if she wasn't very hungry, but wouldn't even contemplate having the bottle unless she was very very hungry, and sometimes then wouldn't take a full feed.  I decided to try one other teat to see if this made any difference to her - chose the playtex latex drop-in fast flow, thinking this may be closer in feel to what she's used to - it didn't make any difference, still chewed it.

I'm not going back to work so am not under any pressure to give her the bottle.  I was just hoping to be able to give it to her for convenience for now - would be able to spend more one on one time with DD1 - and then gradually reduce breastfeeding.  With DD1 I stopped bf when she was 7 months and this felt like the right time, I imagined I'd do the same with DD2.  DD2 has other plans for us.

[*Kara*]

She just might never really take a bottle   Some don't.

[HBabyG]

Yes that's what I'm beginning to think.  I will update if there's any progress.