Well, I've been trying Katie with practice bottles of pumped milk every
so often. I gave her the first one a week and a half ago, when she was
five weeks old, and, although she wasn't too happy, she took it. I gave
her the second one a week ago, and she took that but was quite upset
about it, not helped by the fact that there were various things going on
- doorbell ringing in the middle of me feeding her, etc. - and the feed
kept getting interrupted and she was getting quite worked up, which I'm
worried may have given her an aversion to the whole business. Anyway, I
tried a third bottle yesterday, and she flat-out refused it. Tried
again today, and same thing.

Now, I know it's too early to get too worried about this, and there are
still loads of things I can try to persuade her to take it (I've been
Googling), but it's stressing me out like crazy, because if she doesn't
take a bottle easily then it's going to create huge problems. I have to
go back to work when she's three months old. I know there are
alternative ways of getting milk into her, but it's going to be a
horrendous pain for my husband if he has to cup-feed or syringe-feed her
everything, especially with a three-year-old running around knocking
cups over. Or if she's screaming her head off all day because she just
doesn't want to take a bottle when I'm gone. I've been reading Tracy
Hogg, who had some useful suggestions but also said that if you get a
baby to take a bottle after refusing it then you shouldn't breastfeed
them for the next 48 hours in case they refuse bottles again after going
back to the breast. Can't see myself pumping for that long!

Anyway - so I'm pretty worked up about all this and imagining all sorts
of worst-case scenarios. So if anyone has any tales of babies who
refused bottles for a while but eventually learned to transfer from
breast to bottle without problems, then I'd love the encouragement!


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell