2 month old suddenly refusing boob but taking bottle

[twelveplus_5]

Oh god this whole process has been so hard. My baby lost some weight after birth so was doing bottle top ups on/off since 9 weeks ago.

Here’s what we do:

Day (7am - 7pm)
- Breastfeed on demand exclusively
- 1 x Pump in morning when I wake up

Evening (7pm)
- Breastfeed and a formula top up

Night (1am)
- Breastfeed

Early Morning (4/5am)
- Bottle given my partner so I can sleep that little extra

My midwife said his low at gaining weight so she’s told me he needs a couple of top ups a day aswell.

Today his flat out refused 2 breastfeeds since 7am and happily took a full bottle of formula and I pumped after that bottle and got 80ml so there’s milk there.

I’m scared his got a bottle preference now, breastfeeding has honestly been the hardest thing post partum and I want to get it right as it’s the easiest way, it’s so disheartening when he takes the bottle easily.

Any tips? Seeing a lactation lady on Thursday but I’m worried it’s going to get worse

 

[ladydeecee]

@twelveplus_5 My baby started doing something similar while we were combo feeding. Her preference didn't persist and we are back to EBF now. One thing that worked for me was to get her into a cross cradle nursing hold, give her the pacifier and let her suck on that for a minute, then do a quick boob for pacifiers swap. I think that bypassed her boob rejection and got her nursing. After a few days of that she stopped needing the pacifier to get started.

 

[twelveplus_5]

@ladydeecee This is great advice thank you, have written this down and will implement from next feed. Fingers crossed!

 

[miketexas]

@twelveplus_5 We had a similar issue at 2 months. What helped was using an SNS for all top ups so he went a few weeks without a bottle and learned to love the boob because boob = food and sucking = more food.

We also tried a nipple shield to make the boob more like the bottle and he was OK with that too but I had low supply so it quickly got frustrating for him.

Do you already make sure you pace feed?

 

[twelveplus_5]

@miketexas I never got taught to pace feed, but going to watch some videos today. It’s just disheartening because we just did 15 painful minutes then, and my partner is like okay we’ll give him a bottle, because we’re worried about this weight gain issue.

What’s SNS?

 

[miketexas]

@twelveplus_5 In additional to pace feeding, I would suggest a slow flow nipple. We use the Dr. Brown’s bottles so the P premie nipple worked for us for a while and now we’re on the T transitional nipple. The idea is the bottle should be as much work as the breast and take about the same amount of time.

An SNS is a supplemental nursing system. Basically a bottle attached to a tube that gets place on the nipple so baby latches on both breast and tube at the same time. Then baby sucks on both breast and supplement at the same time. When I used it, I let baby suck for the first 5–10mins with the SNS valve closed and then opened it so he got my natural let down before the supplement as well. I used this one: Starter Supplemental Nursing System 80 ml #0097003S https://a.co/d/4TCvny4