My Baby Won’t Take a Bottle!

Once my exclusively breast-fed daughter reached 9 weeks, I introduced a bottle. Better phrased, I attempted to introduce a bottle. Unlike my son, who could only be soothed with a nipple (pacifier, bottle, or natural—he didn’t discriminate), my baby girl turned her nose up at this foreign piece of BPA-free silicone. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She never took a pacifier, and she even refuses the breast if she’s not hungry—but despite that, I was surprised. She needed to take a bottle. I’ve been applying to jobs, she’s signed up to start daycare . . . at some point, I’d like to go on a date with my husband! My baby won’t take a bottle? She HAS to take a bottle!!

As I’ve been trained, I approached this problem as scientifically as possible. Perhaps she would only take breast milk from me—so I tried formula. No dice. I tried a different nipple. Nope. I tried a different bottle and nipple. Still no. I had my husband (attempt to) feed her while I left the room. Red faced, square-mouthed rage from our girl. Real tears. Arched spine as she attempted to back away from the foreign nipple.

I brought up the issue with her pediatrician at her 2 month well-baby appointment, hoping his years of expertise could magically “fix” the problem. He told me that unless the bottle was introduced in the magic time zone of 6-8 weeks of age, some children had difficulty ever accepting a bottle. [WHAT?? But we’re not supposed to introduce a bottle before 4-6 weeks to prevent nipple confusion! RIGHT?!] He offered to refer me to a lactation consultant—with the disclaimer that they may not assist since it was bottle feeding. I kept that in mind as a potential resource and vowed that I would pursue it if my own efforts continued to fail. Overall though? This was not the magic fix I was hoping to find.

So I took a deep breath and did some research. According to several blog posts and the box packaging, 9/10 babies accept the NUK nipple. Awesome. Off to Target I went returning with two (very girly looking) NUK bottles. My daughter thought about taking it, but ultimately she decided to pass. More square mouthed rage. Not one to be defeated, I tried again the next day—this time with a MAM bottle recommended by another website. She took half an ounce before dissolving into a red-faced frenzy. Progress!

As a mother and pediatric nurse, I’ve given bottles and observed various latches. My daughter’s latch was just plain weird. When she sucked on the bottle, her latch was sloppy. Instead of sealing her lips around the nipple, her mouth remained partially open, and she appeared to be pushing the nipple away with her tongue. Milk dribbled out the corners of her mouth. I consulted one of my former nursing-school instructors (again, hoping for a magical fix). She explained to me that the tongue action I was observing was the (perfectly natural) expulsion reflex. Instead of drawing the milk in, she was pushing away the undesired nipple. She also looked at my collection of bottles and advised trying one with a nipple that angled up toward her palate—as that was where the suck reflex was stimulated. She also reassured me that my child would not starve.

Armed with this reassurance—and new information—I once again took to the Internet to order search yet another round of “best bottles for breastfed babies.” Two days later, the como tomo, the Playtex nurser, and the Lansinoh mOmma bottles arrived in the mail. Then I tried to set myself up for success. While my daughter was napping, I pumped an ounce of milk. As soon as she woke up, I went to her room (we hadn’t nursed in there yet) and introduced the Lansinoh bottle. I chose to try this one as the nipple most closely resembled my own. She calmly explored the nipple (which I aimed up towards her palate and back), then her mouth curved around it and formed a perfect latch. She sucked down the entire bottle—with no expulsion reflex or milk dribble. I. Was. Ecstatic. After a month of trying—SUCCESS!

It’s still not perfect; she won’t accept the bottle if she’s worked up or crying, but it IS progress. At least now I can go on a job interview without paying a babysitter to sit outside the office with my child. And maybe, just maybe, my husband and I can go on a date.