Introducing a bottle to a breastfed baby

[mayday]

Baby has been exclusively breastfed since she was 4 days old. We had a tricky start due to a tricky birth and her being in SCBU on a drip. I felt rather smug that I got her to breastfeed as I was warned in hospital that we may not be able to succeed. Now at just over 5 months I would like to be able to get her to take a bottle occasionally, as in a 3-4 months I will have to go back to work, and also for my sanity. She is an extremely enthusiastic feeder and demands frequently at the moment, often waking in the night too. It's leaving me a bit tired.

We started over Christmas week to give her a bottle at 11pm. OH gave her a bottle of formula, starting with her accepting only a small amount and then me topping her up with breast. Over the next few nights she took more and more, until she was on a full feed of formula. We had a few lovely nights sleep Then we went to MIL's for New Year and we took cartons of the same formula she is on (Aptimil) not realising that it might be a bit different to the powder. She wouldn't take it, so she had 2 nights without formula. When we got back home we thought she would go back onto the powdered formula without bother, but she was having none of it. OH has tried for the past few nights, I keep out of the way so she doesn't get confused, but baby acts like OH is trying to kill her. It is really upsetting OH.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Would I be better off expressing for a while and then moving her onto formula? Do I just perservere with the formula? I do need to get her to take bottles eventually as once I go back to work I could be working away for up to 4 days and OH and my mum will be completely in charge of feeding her.

 

[Nicky_Jones]

I would recommend trying expressed milk. That way it is only changing one thing at a time. I had a lot of trouble at a similar age trying to get Ellie to take a bottle as I was going back to work and needed her to take expressed milk from a bottle during the 8hrs she was going to be in nursery. To start with she was only taking 1-2oz per feed at nursery, but over time this increased and increased until it started dropping due to weaning.

NB Ellie was born on the 7th Aug 2006, and I went back to work on the 6th Jan 2007.

 

[andreag]

Do you wake her for her 11pm feed, or is does she wake for it?
I am just thinking that she might take to it more if she is hungry so you could try it at a different time of the day.
I have the opposite problem - we started to give C a formula feed to get her used to it, and after a couple of weeks she refused EMB and only wants the formula - little traitor! Also, she will take milk out of a bottle but not water - she'll only take that from a cup!
I would try EMB though as Nicky says, so it only one change at a time.