Meg, one thing that gave me inspiration in getting Julia from bottle to
breast was a story Jimmie Avery told me, about a father whose wife had to be
gone for a few days, in some activity that had to do with finishing a
graduate degree.  The baby had refused a bottle for so long that the father
was beside himself, and trying everything imaginable.  What finally made it
was when he took off his shirt and stuck the bottle under his arm, with just
the nipple sticking out between his chest and arm.  This made it enough
closer to the experience of breastfeeding that the baby took it.  I think
trying a nipple shield might work.

Do you know what kind of bottle nipples she has tried? Some babies, for
example, really resist latex nipples, because of the taste of them, but will
go for silicone.  There are such a wide variety of nipples, these days, that
she may just want to try several.  Sometimes, you can't really see why the
baby likes one and not another.  Also, many bottle nipples flow too fast,
and the baby doesn't know how to deal with that.

Is she using her expressed milk in the bottle, or formula?  Some kids are
also very sensitive to the flavor of formula, and might have an easier time
starting with a bottle, if he has the familiar flavor at first.  The milk
based formulas are the least likely to be rejected by a baby because of the
taste, followed by the soy and then the specialty formulas.

Of course, my first question (which I am sure you have already addressed) is
why she wants to go to bottle feeding, and if there isn't something that can
be done to encourage her to keep breastfeeding, at least part of the time.
One of the common things I have seen has been mothers with other children,
who have not felt like they had time to nurse, and thought things would be
easier if they could have one of the older children help with feeding the
baby.  They usually end up spending at least as much time as what they may
have saved by not nursing, trying to deal with a sick baby, which not only
requires a great deal of time, but very stressful time.  Sometimes, it is
the baby's father that needs to be informed of the likelihood of the baby
becoming ill, if breastfeeding is discontinued.  Another possibility is that
the mother feels like she "should" wean, for some reason, and would actually
like to be given permission to keep nursing.

Just a few thoughts!



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