8 Month Old Baby Used to Take a Bottle, Now Refuses

How sad. The breast milk has all the nutrition he needs, the food does not. I would cut the food out until he gets hungry and decides to take the milk. Food at this stage is a suppliment to the breast milk, not the other way around.

But talking to the doc would clear any worry up. They might say just stop the nursing all together, I would not do that but if the doc approves then maybe....

I would stop almost all the food and offer the bottle each and every time the baby is hungry.

The doc should also check for ear infections, throat issues, teething, etc...the action of sucking may be causing the baby pain.

My first thought is that he is teething... and when he gets suction going on the bottle, it presses on his tender gums, and hurts! However, since he is still nursing just fine, that may not be the issue......

There are two possibilities:
- something physical wrong so that he's uncomfortable taking milk out of the bottle.
-he's just decided that he only wants breast milk from mom
If he won't take a sippy cup there's a decent chance that it is the second. You can try to give him water out of the bottle to test it, and I would recommend taking him to the doctor for a checkup just in case.

If it is the second, I'll tell you what my lactation consultant told me and the only thing that worked: cut him off from breastfeeding until he takes the bottle again. It is hard, but it is the only way. We had to go until she'd take the bottle from anyone, because for a while she'd only take it from me, which wasn't much help. It took 36 hours and then we got about 3-4 months until she stopped again, but by then she was over a year.

Good luck.

My daughter did the same thing when she was about 8 months old-gave up the bottle at daycare cold turkey! We had to switch to the sippy cup. I found that the take and toss sippy cups were easier for her to learn on because they did not have the valve to control the flow (i.e., she did not have to suck to get the milk out). Once she got the hang of the sippy cup concept, then we switched over to a valve controlled sippy.

I agree with Gamma G, cut his solids so he's hungrier, this is what our pediatrician recommended and I have seen this "expert advice" given in numerous places, as recently as last week in a baby magazine, sorry I can't remember which one. At 8 months your son really should be eating little in solids, until he's a year they are offered only to get him used to the various tastes and to teach him the mechanics of eating, never to replace breast milk or formula, and no more than a bit more than a cup of food per day:

1/4 (4 tablespoons) cup dairy (or 1/2 oz. cheese)
1/4 (4 tablespoons) cup iron-fortified cereal
1/4 (4 tablespoons) cup fruit
1/4 (4 tablespoons) cup vegetables
1/8 (2 tablespoons) cup protein foods

Also find a sippy cup he likes or will tolerate and have that offered with the milk BEFORE any solids, he can live without them but needs the breast milk and needs to be hungry to take it.
You just gotta be smarter than him ; )

Perhaps he needs a bottle nipple with a larger hole now that he's older.