Help! My Baby Won't Take a Bottle

If breastfeeding got off to a good start for you and your little one, you probably did not need to introduce a bottle right away. But if weeks (or even months!) went by without using a bottle, chances are good that your baby is now struggling to accept one at all.

And that’s stressful! Especially if you have a return to work deadline or some other big event on the horizon for which you need to be away from your baby.

The general recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatricians is to introduce a bottle around 3-4 weeks postpartum (if breastfeeding is going well) and then continue to allow your baby to practice with a bottle several times a week or even every other day.

But if your baby’s first introduction to a bottle did not go smoothly, don’t panic!

Check out our top three tips for helping your breastfeed baby learn to take a bottle.

Patience

For some babies, they will take to a bottle with ease and go back and forth from breast to bottle without a single problem. But for many babies, eating from a bottle is a learned-skill and if they did not become familiar with this skill at a very early age, they may have trouble adapting to bottle-feeding. But chances are with some practice and lots of patience they will pick it up.

And we mean lots of patience.

One of our best tips is to stay cool during this time. If your baby senses that you are anxious, frustrated, or upset, they will probably feel anxious too. So stay calm. Allow your baby to “play” around with the bottle, explore the nipple with their tongue, and move it around in their mouth. Never force the nipple into their mouth and hold it there. This can create oral aversions for a baby and it can be upsetting for them too.

Your goal is to make practice time as calm and relaxed as possible.

Even if your baby is not latched and feeding from the bottle, let them keep it in their mouth to explore for as long as is acceptable for them. This allows the baby to explore the nipple and figure out what is going on. It might be messy, but it allows them time to learn. But as soon as your baby begins to express frustration, get fussy, or actively tries to push the bottle away and out of their mouth, it’s time for a break. Calm your baby and try again. If they are out of patience, then end the practice session for this time and try again tomorrow.

Along these lines, pick a time of day to practice with the bottle when your baby is well-rested and in a good mood. For many infants, this is some time in the morning. As the day goes on, babies can get overstimulated and the late afternoons/early evenings can be prime meltdown time. This is not a good time to try out a new skill. If your baby is already grumpy, chances are you’re going to get grumpy too and then everyone will have lost their patience in no time.

Persistence

Another great tip to get your breastfed baby to take a bottle is to stay persistent. We often see families rush out and buy every conceivable bottle and nipple on the market and then introduce them one after another if their baby doesn’t take to one right away. By changing the nipple so frequently, your baby never gets the opportunity to really get used to one kind of nipple and learn how to properly latch and eat from it.

So stick with one bottle and one nipple for quite a few practice sessions. Your baby needs to get used to the bottle and the shape of the nipple and this can take time. If you change it up on them every time, they won’t actually have time to get familiar with the bottle.

And remember to practice daily. You don’t need to work with a bottle all day long, but pick one good time to practice daily and stick with it. Be persistent.

Creativity

And finally, get creative! Make the bottle-feeding experience as different as possible from the way the baby is breastfed. You may need to have another parent besides the lactating parent or a caregiver be the one to introduce the bottle. And don’t sit in the same place and hold baby in the same position that the breastfeeding sessions take place in. The association in your baby’s mind might be too strong.

Instead, try holding your baby in a different position than the one they normally breastfeed in. One that works well is to sit your baby more upright in your arms, with their back to your stomach, facing outward.

You can also walk around the house, sing, rock or sway, distract them with their favorite ceiling fan or mirror, go outside - all of these things can help your baby focus on something else while simultaneously practicing with the bottle in their mouth. A little distraction is sometimes the key.

If you consistently implement persistence, practice, and creativity, chances are that your baby will eventually eat from a bottle.

It may not happen right away but don’t get discouraged. Your baby is learning a new skill and this takes time. And if you are trying all of the things and feel like you’re making no progress, reach out to us! One of our infant feeding specialists can set up an in-home visit to work with you and your baby one-on-one to learn bottle skills.