6 Weeks Old and Refusing the Bottle

This is such a special time for both you and him...There is a special bond that forms when you are breastfeeding. If there isn't a reason to bottle feed, then just enjoy that special time with him while you can. He just prefers to snuggle with mom than a bottle! Just think about from his perspective. :) They are only that young once and before you know it, they will be going off to college. You are so blessed to be able to stay at home with them. You will have plenty of time later to get back in shape, and with 3 little ones, going for walks with the stroller...taking them to the park, etc...you can still get in some good exercise in the meantime. Hope this helped.

You might want to get the next stage nipple. The hole might be to small for him to get satisfied with the bottle, he may feel he is working to hard to get the milk.

Six weeks is also a growth spurt period for most babies. So he's going through a lot of changes right now, too, and probably wants the comfort of mom over a bottle. If you don't already have one, get a sling and let him nurse to his heart's content right now.

Then in a couple of weeks let Dad try and give him a bottle. My daughter NEVER wanted a bottle from me when she knew she could have the real thing.

Hi H., I breastfed my twin girls (and still am) and started pumping and feeding them a bottle around 6-8 weeks to try to get them used to it to allow me a little independance. One of my girls adjusted easily and the other drank from the bottle for around 1 month, then I stopped for a couple of weeks (for no aparent reason) and then "whammy", she refused it when I went off to work. I ended up coming home at noon daily to nurse her for 2-3 months (I am only working 6 hour days). Around 6 months she began to take the bottle better and I was able to work straight through. I admit, I did give in to her, and maybe if I had drawn a harder line, then she would have taken the bottle quicker and more readily. But this is what I felt comfortable with. They are now 14 months and I still nurse them both 1-2 times a day and her at night. She has never taken a bottle to go to bed at night (she's fine during the day).

My advice is for you not to be in the house (at least in a different room) when your husband or parents try to give your baby the bottle- if he sees you, he will only want to nurse. Make sure you are never the one to offer the bottle. I would keep trying, even if he only takes a small amount and then you come in an supplement. That will get him back used to the routine. I could never not come feed my baby when she refused, just couldn't stand the hunger cries. Much easier to allow them to cry out to sleep, but for me, impossible to allow to cry hungry! Best of luck to you, it will certainly work out!! F.

My daughter was really weird, I've never heard of another kid with her quirks. She would only take the breast milk from a bottle if it was freshly pumped and left out till she was ready to drink it. If it had been in the fridge or frozen she refused it even if I got it to the exact same temperature. For a while I tried to get away with pumping as much as I could whenever I wanted a bottle handy since it will keep for a couple of hours at room temp. Eventually I decided no more often than she has a bottle I might as well just use powdered formula. They make quite a few organic ones now. She took that no matter what temp, even if it had been in the fridge. Weird kid! so much for my expensive breast pump...LOL

Have you tried NOT being the one giving the bottle? I needed for my last baby (who is now 15 months) to take a bottle now and then. His father had to give it to begin with and I could not be ANYWHERE in the vicinity.

I would try that. I know that breast feeding is special, and I have loved it with all four of my children. That said, I have also learned that what works for the individual family is the best. I have had friends who could not produce milk...thank heaven that formula was around, and is better all of the time. I have had friends who never left their child side and for them constant breast feeding was what worked. But, I would still say that you need some time, and a bottle now and then, or once a day is not harmful at all, and find a solution that works for you.

I don't want to pretend to know everything, especially since I have one little baby and you have three children now. I just feel that if you are a stay at home mom you should not need to use a bottle at all. You have been blessed with another child and the ability to stay at home and raise them. I enjoy the time I nurse with my daughter and wouldn't trade it. When she was about that same age I tired to give her a bottle, mainly because I felt like my family was pressuring me to do so (obviously not my husband). She took it one time and never again. That was more than fine by me and I took it as her saying she knew what was instinctual for her. She still just wants to nurse and not drink anything else. That is great because she is not ready yet and we don't want to pressure her to develop faster than she should. You burn so many calories nursing I didn't need to exercise at all and I gained sixty pounds!!! I lost it all so quickly and I was eating extra calories as well. If you are using a schedule to nurse and working out is that important, you could just go after you nurse him or while he is sleeping.

when he sees you he associates eating at your breast, have dad or another MALE feed him a bottle that might make it easier, and don't feed him when he is HUNGARY do it a little before the normal feeding time

He's only 6 weeks old so that mean's it's only been that long since you were pregnant, your body is prob not ready for you to start working out , at least not anything past what you can do at home. By the time you are ready to get into it hard, he will be old enough where he's not nursing every 2 hrs. so , just let him nurse, You are actually lucky he's not taking the bottle, most babies that take a bottle that early stop nursing,then your supply drops and pumping isnt the same as actual baby nursing. I don't know if you breastfed your older childern , which is why I give you this information. Nursing is a supply and demand process, the more he nurses the more milk you make, so it's good for him to nurse any time he want's to. If you are bound and determand and aren;t worried about supply or him weaning early let someone else try to give him the bottle. And try giving it to him when he isnt REALLY hungry.

My first baby was willing to take my breastmilk from a bottle, but baby #2 refused; even if someone else offered it to her. So, I just always fed her before I went somewhere, and she was fine for a few hours until I came back.

There are so many other ways for others to bond with your baby aside from feeding, so don't worry about them. As long as you're able to be back within a reasonable period of time, your baby should be just fine waiting. And, as he gets older, he'll be able to go longer periods of time without nursing. Enjoy this special time with your baby!! It flies by so quickly :)

I had to pump and use the bottle for my daughter since I have to work. She really liked the NUK bottles- they are supposed to be shaped like a natural breast. My lactation consultant told me to get the wide base nipples on any bottle I used, not the normal size, b/c babies who are breast fed a lot of times don't like the smaller nipples after being breastfed too.

I had the same problem with my son who is now 3 1/2 months. What I did was allowed him to drink as much as he could from the bottle (even if its only 1/2 an ounce) then I would breastfeed him. The more bottles I tried to give him the better he got. I also made sure that the nipples were very soft (like the ones they give at the hospital). By the time he was 2-2 1/2 months he gotten the hang of it.

My 4yo was the same way that boy vehemently refused a bottle of any kind from me from my husband I even left a couple times and left him with my husband to see if that would make a difference if I wasn't home nope he cried and cried and waited for me to get home from the adventure I had been on but would not ever take a bottle. around a year I could get him to take a sippy cup but never would he even drink breastmilk from it! I just adjusted my schedule accordingly for him not all that helpful if you are planning a trip away from baby but just what I had gone into. In hindsight it really wasn't that bad especially as he got a little older and I could leave him home with hubby for a bit longer and I just felt they are only little for so long and it was what he needed for whatever reason so who was I to argue and try to force something that wasn't really necessary as I was a SAHM.

My daughter was the same way. She would not take a bottle nor a pacifier. We tried all different types of bottles and nipples and even formulas and nothing pleased her. I ultimately gave up and nursed her exclusively. Around 5 or 6 months she started to wean herself(once she had a taste of cereal) but still wouldn't take bottles. I ended up giving her milk with a syringe(squirt into her mouth) and then just went to a cup.

Best of luck!

I went thru the same thing with my 2nd and 3rd children. We tried every nipple on the market, and finally just gave in to breastfeeding only. One time we had to leave our children with my parents to attend an out of state funeral. Our youngest daughter was a little over a year old and still breastfeeding. I pumped as much milk as I could before we left and purchased a can of powdered formula that claims to be the closest thing to breastmilk you can buy in a store. Thank goodness we were only gone for 36 hours, because she refused to take anything from a bottle. What's so funny is Baileigh loved pacifers so much that she would have 2 at a time in her mouth and as many as she could fit in each hand, but bottle nipples she wouldn't touch.
Our 3rd child, he just all of a sudden stopped breastfeeding and started drinking from a sippy cup at the age of 9 months. He never would take a pacifer either. I am forunate that the placed where I worked allowed me to bring my children with me because they(my children) might have starved themselves to death otherwise.
Good Luck!

Yeah, I had (one out of 4) who refused a bottle, too. She'd take a pacifier, but not a bottle...weird. In the grand scheme of things, it won't really be that long until he's able to use a sippy cup. My daughter was ready by 10 months as I recall (she's 13 now, so my memory is fuzzy). Even then, she didn't really care for the regular top, but she learned to use a straw, and then that was that. If you can work around him for a little while with your schedule, I wouldn't stress about it. Be glad he's breastfeeding so well, and enjoy it while it lasts!

My 7 week old was having the same problem...so we had to do "boot camp"...since I'm home with her during the week alone, of course I'm the only one that can feed her, so every Friday evening, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday, someone else feeds her my breastmilk from the bottle...she refuses the first bottle each time, but after that she gives in and takes it....so now, I automatically warm her bottle when it's time for her to wake up and before she's fully alert, I begin feeding her the breastmilk from the bottle....hope this helps!