How Do I Get My Daughter to Drink Nutramigen?

Babies have to acquire a taste for new things. Try adding breast milk to it(2 parts breast milk/1part formula) for a week, then 1/2 bm/ 1/2 formula the next week, etc. She'll eventually adjust to the flavor.

I used to keep my grandson very often. He wouls seem to get so very hungry before his next feeding & was not sleeping at night well at all. I came up with what I called his "Shake Bottle". I would pour his formula in & add abit of rice cereal & some mild baby fruit, mainly applesauce. I made the hole in the bottle larger so that this thicker liquid could be sucked out ok, after warming the bottle & checking it, I would give it to him slowly. He loved this & he slept so much better. This may help with the taste of the new formula she is having to drink, if you try this I hope it works for her,my grandson loved it! G. H.

Taste it for yourself. Do you really want to force your child to drink that? hehee Seriously, though - going from breast milk to that is going to be a very difficult task. Breastmilk is sweet and delicious. That stuff is - well -- Not. At all.

I can fully understand the difficulty you're experiencing with the diet. I have been dairy free & soy free for more than 2 years now due to my son's allergies. It's not easy, but it's still much easier on both of us than the formula would have been.

Think of it this way... She's 7 months old now. Theoretically, you only have 5 more months until she doesn't need formula or breast milk anymore, if you go by what some medical experts say. At that point, you can switch to rice milk or hemp milk and life will be fine. Five months goes by very quickly when you have a baby who is growing so fast. You've survived more than 5 months already. You can do just 5 more.

I agree with Kerri T. Start "sneaking" it into a bottle of breastmilk, gradually increasing the formula and decreasing the breastmilk. It may just be an acquired taste for your daughter - the acquiring can take some time.

My daughter only liked it if it was really warm. Not so hot to burn her mouth, but warmer then room temp.

Have you tried pumping and mixing it with the formula? Start with 3 parts breast milk to 1 part formula. After about a week of that, decrease the breast milk and increase the formula to half and half. Give her time to get used to that (at least a week) and then go to 1 part breast milk to 3 parts formula. After a week or so then stop using breast milk at all and see how she does. Some babies will take to this really easy, others will need a longer period of time to adjust. I would start with one bottle a day of the mix, then work up to 1/2 her feedings being bottles before switching.

When my oldest was about 6 months old, we had to switch to formula. Since I was working outside the home at the time, I was pumping and he was getting bottles from that. When my supply started going down, we had to start supplementing with formula, mixing it was the only way we could get him to take the formula.

Good luck!

Try mixing it with breast milk instead of water. That will make it sweeter and more familiar. That's about all I can think of, if she has allergies, you can't really mix it with much else. Make sure you pump a bunch before you stop nursing so you have it backed up. Later once she is used to it, you can mix less and less breast milk and more water.

W.

I would just continue to offer it over and over instead of one of her feedings. She will probably get hungry enough at some point to actually take it. OR you could give her the formula in the morning when she is the hungriest or when she wakes up from her nap when she is the hungriest.
I hope you get it all taken care of.
Good luck!

We add a little (up to a 50/50 mix) of orange or grape Pedialyte to it. That has helped TREMENDOUSLY, but check with your pediatrician. Too much sugar can cause diarrhea ( the sugar in pedialyte is not the bad type of sugar, but still makes our daughters' stools runny.) DO NOT use Karo syrup or white sugar with the Nutramagin...it kills some of the nutrition.

try adding some fruit to it i know it sounds really gross but that is what i had to do to my son who drank simalic alimentium it tastes and smells really bad and he hated it but he drank it just fine with fruit or flavored cereal in it

The stuff doesn't smell so great either. My daughter was on this from the time she was about 2 months old. So, maybe she drank because she didn't know any better. It could be that your little girl just prefers breast milk. Try doing 3/4 breast milk, 1/4 Nutramigen for a week and then go to 1/2 and 1/2 to eventually get her on Nutramigen. If that doesn't work, you may need to get with your pediatrician to see if he/she can put her on another formula for sensitivity. Good luck!

K.,
All the responses are what I would have suggested except and please check with your DR before doing so, but I wonder if you could add Vanilla flavoring... I am not sure as to how much and if it would be ok for your baby to have that is why I suggest talking with your Dr first.

I BF my DD till she was 2 and she didn't want milk... so we had to add vanilla to it and then eventually added less and less.

Remember to do what is best for you and your family. :)

Just a thought about perhaps needing a paradigm shift about not having the dairy and soy. Your daughter is going to have to live with that for a while, right? My daughter cannot have gluten (wheat & barley), dairy, soy, and eggs. Rather than be ona "restrictive" diet, her diet actually broadened because it opened up a world of foods that had not been considered--not made a part of life.

She eats a variety of brieds, wraps, and even cake... all made from scratch with different ingredients. Her foods are all wholesome, "whole" foods, non-processed. She is glowing with health.

When she is in a restaurant, we sometimes call the manager over to talk to about ingredients, and we have never encountered a situation in a restaurant where she could not get a delectible meal without the ingredients she cannot have.

In order to not feel deprived, she made a paradigm shift in thinking about health in general.

If this diet will continue for your child in the years to come, your child may benefit with you behind her in every way with a lifestyle change.

There are many excellent websites and cook books about allergy-free cooking, dairy-free cooking, etc. Yes, you give up a lot, but with a different approach, you can also gain a lot of variety.

Looks like you've got some good advice from some BTDT moms. I just wanted to add two things: remember that breastmilk and formula can not be handled or stored the same way. Meaning you could reuse a BM only bottle and/or let it stay out longer but formula can not be reused and has to be used within a certain amount of time after being mixed. So if you start mixing the two, and baby does not drink it all or soon, you will have to throw it out. The second thing is I just wanted to encourage you to continue to be patient. It's totally understandable that you are tired of the restrictive diet (I'm a BTDT mom too!) but I think the key here is take it slow and easy, not just expect her to "get" it right away or like it right away.
I also want to add a big kudos for sticking with BF'ing for so long. We do not live in a BF'ing supportive society and there are so many obstacles BF'ing moms face, so the fact you have continued to bfeed and have a restrictive diet is an accomplishment. Pat yourself on the back.

Hi K.,

I also have a 7 month old who has food intolerances. I breast feed him for 5 1/2 months and eliminated just about everything and then finally gave up and put him on Similac's Alimentum which is also hypoallergenic and tastes awful! We had to just keep trying until he finally took it. I think what really helped him was getting the formula very warm. He would not take it unless it was warm and sometimes we even had to "freshen" it up midway through to get him to take the entire bottle. he eventually became less particular and I have been able to get him to take it a lot more easily than before.

Nutramigen was on sale this week at Target so I bought a canister to see if he liked it and luckily he tolerated it just fine. So eventually, hopefully your baby will just get used to drinking formula rather than breastmilk like our son did. It is very different!

On a side note, now that my son drinks hypoallergenic formula, he is almost a different baby. He use to have bad eczema and spit up all the time. He now has beautiful skin and hardly ever spits up and he is always happy.

Good Luck!

I am not sure of what food issues your daughter has but you could try any of the baby cereals and Karo syrup. I used to make my daughter a cereal or fruit bottle when she was an infant and she sucked them down. I just mixed the formula a little bit of oatmeal or rice cereal, and her favorite baby fruit and if I did not do friut i put a little Karo syrup in with the cereal( per pediatricians suggestion ) . The bottle should be soupy so don't mix to much . You will also have to make the hole in the nipple a little bigger. Good Luck

Evidentally, nothing tastes as good as mother's milk. It may be that you have to make the switch cold turkey. Stop breastfeeding and pump as needed to relieve pressure. Your daughter will, of course, fuss at first. She will probably refuse to eat a meal. However, when she gets hungry enough, she will eat the formula. That may seem a little harsh, especially when she's fussing and crying and looking so pitiful. But the truth is, if the doctor has prescribed Nutramigen, then the formula is what's best for her. If your daughter has the same thing all 3 of my children had, then the long-chain enzymes in soy, milk, egg, and nut are tearing the lining of her intestines. That's what causes the blood in her stool (if she has that). Before you try cold turkey, though, try rice cereal. It sweetens the milk. I believe Beechnut is the only brand, though, that doesn't have soy, etc. in it. Make sure the hole in the nipple is large enough to let the thicker mixture come through (medium or fast flow), otherwise this will frustrate your daughter even more. If your daughter has reflux, then the doctor probably wants the bottle flow to be restricted and wants to keep the nipple hole small (low flow). It should take your daughter 5 minutes to eat each ounce of formula. If she eats faster than that, you will most likely see it all again (if she has reflux). And, of course, reflux if not treated, can erode the lining of her esophogus. So even though we are tempted to give in to our children's crying and relieve their temporary dissatisfaction, we have to keep in mind their long-term health. Hope this helps.

Hi K.,
My daughter had to to use the Nutramigen as well. I always mixed breast milk w/it, b/c she wouldn't drink it by itself, either. Have you smelled it, yuck! Who can blame them? I had planned on quitting breastfeeding around the same time, but just continued so she would have a mixture. Maybe since you'd be deluting the breast milk w/ formula, you could slowly start adding dairy back into your diet??? My daughter has no problem w/whole milk now; the Nutramigen is great b/c it is still milk protein, just broken down in a different way. After a couple weeks of being on a Nutramigen/breast milk mixture, I would say you wouldn't have to restrict so much. I'm sorry if I wasn't much help; I don't know what outside of breast milk that would make this any better.
Sincerely,
A.

You may try putting some vanilla in it. Also, consider as she is old enough to switch from formula to "milk" she may like the rice milk at that time. I would also suggest talking with a Registered Dietitian that works with food allergies.

Good Luck

I think I would continue to breastfeed until she was at least 1 year old. The benefits of breastfeeding will far outweigh the benefits of the formula. I know it is a sacrifice to alter your diet but we sacrifice for our kids for the rest of our lives. We sacrifice that cute new outfit or shoes so our kids can have... I have been a mother for 21+ years and have made sacrifices from day one. Some are small, some are big but if the outcome is better for the child(ren)then every sacrifice is worth it!!Your breast milk is exactely what your child needs. It is wonderfully made to have everything she needs and a taste that she is used to and obliviously prefers. I do not have any advice for making the formula taste better. I remember that my youngest brother had to drink Isomil (30+ years ago). He did not like it and the drs. advice was when hes hungry enough he will drink it. I remember that he always spit up or threw up what he drank. It smelled horrible and left stains on the clothes and burp rags that Mom never could get out. Mom was so glad when she could finally trash all that stuff! She said if she could do it over again she would of breastfed all of us kids.Good Luck

I was lucky, my little guy didn't balk when we tried the Nutramigen. But, a couple of tricks I've heard--since you're BFing, mix just a little of the formula in with lots of breast milk to start. Once baby takes that ok, increase the formula and decrease the breast milk until they're tolerant of both. Also, you might check with your pediatrician and see if you could try Alimentum instead. That's Similac's version and (although I think it tastes bad too) maybe your little punkin would like it better. Good luck!

A little trick..Nutramigen is made from Enfamil, it takes really bitter. But the Similac Alimentium is better, The onlt difference between them is Similac add a littke bit of sugar to make it taste better, My son would not take nutramigen either, Good Luck. J. Peds nurse