Are you looking to transition your baby from breast to bottle feeding in the future? Maybe you’re returning to work or you’d like your family to be able to help with your little ones feeding. Or perhaps you just want to be able to leave the house without whipping your boobs out every two hours.
It’d be nice to just get dressed in the morning without thinking “does this top have easy boob access?“
For us, the move from breast to bottle feeding hasn’t been straight forward. I’ve not enjoyed it. I can’t help but wonder “Why is my baby refusing the bottle? What am I doing wrong?!”
I’m feeling impatient and I just want the whole process over and done with.
It’s hard not to feel frustrated when your baby refuses to bottle feed
Read on for our transition from breastfeeding to bottle feeding and how we’re coping when our baby refuses the bottle.
I know bottle feeding can mean both formula milk and expressed breastmilk so, for now, assume I mean formula milk.
All in all, the reason for this post is I’m finding it a struggle and nothing prepared me for the struggle I was about to face. I’ve heard many babies find moving from breast to bottle feeding easy. This hasn’t been the case for me and my little man.
I’ve put together things that aren’t really working, and things that are making a difference. 👈 click to skip
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Why are we transitioning baby from breast to bottle feeding?
I never really (if I’m being honest) wanted to start bottle feeding.
I can’t be bothered with the sterilising and the prep and all the things. Not to mention the cost of formula!
I’m a little lazy by nature, and breastfeeding for me is a no brainer. No prep, no washing up and no watching your smart meter tick up while you boil the kettle again.
A wee disclaimer: I’m not anti-formula. If you choose to formula feed your baby, you don’t need to justify reasons for that, it’s your choice. As stated above, I always said if I could breastfeed then I would because sod preparing bottles at 2am. So I consider myself quite blessed that I was able to breastfeed both my babies. My breastfeeding journey was far from straightforward though. More on that another time.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed breastfeeding for the most part and happily breastfed my little girl until she was 14 months old.
Even so,
✩ I am looking forward to the perks of bottle feeding ✩
This time, I’m cutting my maternity leave short and returning to work after 9 months. As I’m a teacher in a secondary school, expressing milk while at work isn’t a realistic option for me.
Since Owen will need some sort of formula milk/ breastmilk/ not-cows-milk up to a year old I decided to start his transition from breast to bottle feeding when he turned 6 months.
3 months to get ahead of the game and lots of time to adjust.
So. I. Thought.
I’m a 4 weeks in and I swear he breastfeeds more now than he did to start with purely out of protest.
Anyway, it’s been a struggle. I hope if you’re struggling too, then you won’t feel quite so alone.
Difficulties we’ve come across when moving from breast to bottle feeding
The long and the short of it is I wasn’t prepared for the pain-in-the-backside problem this was going to become for me.
I thought we might have a few days of him not really knowing what to do and pulling few faces at the new taste of formula.
This is what I actually faced.
- Choosing a bottle – there are so many types of bottle. Like, so many. As a bottle novice, I felt a little bit lost. And they all say they are awesome. I’m starting to think it doesn’t matter as much as people say it does. I could be wrong.
- Crying at the bottle – I don’t mean grizzling a bit. I mean arched back, purple in the face, angry kind of crying. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that.
- Chewing the bottle – Is this normal? Treating the bottle teat like a teether? Either way at this point I’m just happy he got the bottle in his mouth.
- Breastfeeding is so much easier – When my toddler is having one-of-those-days, and I haven’t slept so I’m exhausted and I have the option to pop a boob out because its the easy way out. You can bet your bottom dollar my lazy ass is gonna breastfeed instead of making up a bottle. Yup, I throw my hands up at this one, I haven’t helped the situation by giving up some afternoons.
- He can smell me a mile away – Owen is not fooled by my husband giving him the bottle whilst I hide in the kitchen. He knows and will make it very clear that he’s not happy about it.
- THE GODDAMN GUILT OF IT ALL – When I’m offering him a bottle and he’s crying, turning his head and angrily munching on my jumper I can’t help but feel super guilty for ‘denying’ him the breast. Mum guilt sucks.
Advice I’ve followed that didn’t do much to help
- Swap one feed at a time – Maybe I misunderstood this advice. When transitioning from breast to bottle feeding, one of the issues that can happen is engorged boobs as your body adjusts to making less milk. So the advice is to ‘replace one feed a day’ which meant I was offering formula once a day. Since it’s a new experience for him I should’ve offered several times a day to get him used to it quicker. Seeing as he wasn’t actually drinking any of it anyway I still had to breastfeed so no chance of full boobs here.
- Express breastmilk to put into a bottle – I don’t know why this didn’t help much. I’ve read it helps other babies but for Owen I think the main issue was the bottle not what’s inside it.
- Try different bottles – I’m not convinced that there’s a magic bottle that a breastfed baby will naturally swap to.
- Try different formula – Um, have you seen the price of formula? Frankly, unless he had a reaction to one, I wasn’t going to do this.
- Start early… ha! – Joking aside, I started with 3 months until he *had* to have formula but with hindsight I should’ve given him bottles every now and again when he was much younger. I think the advice is to start around 8 weeks, when breastfeeding is established.
Looking ahead – advice that is helping us transition from breast to bottle feeding
- Put formula in their baby rice if they’re ready for solids – After doing this a couple of days running, Owen accepted the smell and taste of the formula we chose.
- Stick with a bottle and let them get used to it – After reading this here article, I think it makes sense that constantly changing bottles can add stress to the situation. In the end, I stuck with this MAM bottle with a fast flow teat. See the update for our Sippy Cup recommendation.
- Recruit help and run away – I’m just saying, they might not know where you’re hiding but they know the booby-milk is close by! It helps being fed by someone else, whether it be a partner, friend or grandparent because they know it’s a different situation than if you were holding them. But actually leave, don’t hover close by.
- Walk around – As a bottle feeding newbie, this is quite amusing to watch, it’s like I’ve got two left hands. But walking around and a little bouncy-bounce seems to encourage the little man to have a bit more from the bottle.
Are you going through the same?
Our journey from breast to bottle feeding is far from over, but I feel like we’re turning a corner.
What problems did you face and how did you overcome them? Or ask a question and I’ll do my best to help or point you in the right direction.
UPDATE: April 2023 We finally cracked Owen taking formula regularly throughout the day. And in the end, we ditched the bottle and he accepted these Munchkin 360 cups. Who’d have thought? Anyway, happy formula feeding Mama! xoxo
