Thought that others with bottle-refusers might like to hear of our breakthrough.
DD is six months, took a bottle of ebm beautifully between two and seven weeks, then began to refuse flatly. We have been having some success with the Nuk soft spout cup so I put a teat on it as an experiment and she took it! The crucial things, IMO:
- Nuk latex teat (even though she has rejected before)
- we are currently weaning, so I think from her perspective it was 'just another new thing that that woman is giving me to put in my mouth ... Let's give it a go'
- I used formula for the first time, not ebm
- finally, and I think most importantly, I kept the cup handles on the bottle and let her bring it to her mouth herself. I still held the end to guide and tip it up but she controlled bringing it to and from her mouth.
There's a passage in the blw book about how bf babies can control their feeding, and this is absolutely true of my DD. We have no choice but to do blw with her as she will not be spoon-fed and I think she really needs to feel that she has control over what goes into her mouth.
Possibly not the key for all bottle-refusers, and only useful to consider past a certain age, but perhaps a glimmer of hope nevertheless!