Baby Bottle Showdown – Getting Baby to Take a Bottle
This post contains affiliate links which means if you click and buy I may make a commission at no cost to you. See my policy for more information.
I don’t know about you – but bottles did not go over well in our house.
Our son demanded to be fed straight from the source. None of this plastic middleman nonsense.
Feeding time used to be a happy time for Little Man, but with the introduction of these plastic breast impersonators, meal time was met with more tears than smiles.
For both of us, really.
Because, as my days on maternity leave neared the end, I became more and more anxious that he would starve at daycare — refusing to take a bottle. Even if it was pumped milk as opposed to formula.
Images of my baby screaming all day without food to comfort his hunger pangs brought me to tears on more than one occasion.
I was panicking.
I felt like I had tried everything until at last I found out how to get my baby to take a bottle.
Our best effort to get our son to take a bottle
We were fortunate enough to be able to wait until our little buddy was 4 ½ months before putting him into daycare.
By that time he was putting everything in his mouth.
We desperately wanted him to take a bottle so that he would have an easier transition when I went back to work.
My husband and I had tried purchasing a variety of bottles, holding the bottle in front of his face, willing him to drink.
Half-hearted attempts were even made to offer him only a bottle, no breast, a time or two as well.
Finally, in a last ditch effort, I took the nipple off the most likely bottle and handed it to him.
No milk, no motherly interference, and no bottle. I just wanted him to play with it – get familiar with it the same way he does with everything else, by putting it into his mouth.
IT WORKED.
We seemed to have nailed how to get my baby to take a bottle !
Finally, he wasn’t screaming and crying each time we showed him a bottle.
Instead, he played with it, got comfortable with it, and after a few opportunities just to play with the nipple he was willing to take a bottle.
Happily, even.
As long as he was hungry, once a full bottle was attached to this new play-thing he was eager to eat. He didn’t even try to play with it if he was hungry (the same can’t be said for when he was offered a bottle and wasn’t hungry – but hey – I’m learning to pick my battles).
Fortunately, he did go to daycare without starving. What a relief.
