If you've ever tried to give a breastfed baby over a certain age a bottle, you'll believe me when I say that our son wasn't interested in that cold plastic thing with formula in it. We tried for several weeks but he would have none of it. Why did we keep failing? Well according to the "Baby Whisperer," Tracy Hogg, we weren't really giving it all we had.
Here's her plan, which worked really well for us:
1. Prepare yourself emotionally for a hunger strike. If your baby has had 4 or more months to enjoy and acclimate to nursing, bottles of formula probably won't be very appealing to him.
2. Offer the first bottle at the beginning of the day after Baby's had a long break from food and will be hungry yet well rested.
3. Don't force it. You don't want to create a negative association. If Baby doesn't want the bottle after about 5 minutes, just say "I guess you're not hungry" and put it away. Hunger is a powerful motivator. It's the only motivator he'll need.
4. Keep trying every hour or so until Baby takes the bottle. Our son never held out longer than two hours. They were two rather fussy hours, but over quickly compared to weeks of 'trying.'
5. It can be helpful to have someone other than Mom feed the first few bottles, but don't wait too long to join in. I found that my son would often reject them from me, but if we did something else and tried again 5 minutes later, he would take it from me too. After a day of that, he knew I was serious.
6. Commit to 2 days of only bottles after Baby accepts the first one. This was not my favorite part, but it did help our son get used to the new food.
7. After the 2 days, you can nurse again, but continue to offer a bottle at least once a day.
Our 11 month old son has been doing well with his bottles now for a week or so. I am sad to see the nursing go, but I'm glad we won't have any trauma when we leave him with Grandma for our week long mission trip that's coming up.
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