OK, first of all, this:
Anatomical lingerie, people. Let’s get real.
All right, now for an altogether separate topic, I need to get some advice from everyone who has an opinion on breastfeeding (FYI that’s everyone, period). It turns out my 9-month-old son is a breastmilk snob — he will not take formula (even though it’s expensive and organic and I bought a whole damn tub of it), nor will he take defrosted breastmilk from the freezer, whether warm or cold, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference whether it’s in a bottle or sippy cup. He wants straight from the boob or nothing else, and honestly, I can’t really blame the guy. However, this doesn’t work so well for when momma has to leave the house for more than three straight hours. And let’s just say there are a few weddings coming up, plus most likely daycare in the near future because we are so damn broke and momma needs to get a real-ass job. I know that once he reaches 12 months we can switch over to cow’s milk, but what the heck am I supposed to do in the interim? I don’t have a pump because I had to return it to my friend, but even if I did, it would always take about three pumping sessions to get enough supply for one feed. So annoying. Anyway, would love any advice out there for how to get this kid’s palate adjusted to the shitty merlot of the milk world (ie. formula).
Yeah, Science! 
I’m not speaking from experience YET, but I’ve heard that sometimes a baby who won’t take a bottle from mom may actually take it with someone else offering. I’ve also heard good things about the Dr. Brown’s natural flow wide mouth bottles…that they mimic breastfeeding. I am registered for those right now.
As for the breast pump, are you able to get one through your insurance provider for free? The Affordable Care Act mandates that all insurers provide this and also coverage for lactation consultants (yet another option to get pro help). There are a few insurers that slip through the cracks because they’re “grandfathered in” under their old plans, but I’d say 90% or more of insurance companies should cover this stuff for you. Pumping and giving breastmilk is a much better option imho. The amount you get with pumping may have changed since last time you tried to express as well I’m guessing if you are solely BF’ing?
I know you said you don’t have a pump, but would it be possible to hand express some fresh milk and mix that with formula or your frozen milk? Do a 70%-25% fresh to formula/frozen mix and then gradually increase it to where he’s getting 100% formula/frozen? That way it’s not such a change for him? Doesn’t really help the problem of him not taking a bottle or cup, but it may help him take the formula.
I’ve also heard that some ladies have high amounts of some enzyme or protein (which of course I can’t remember the name of now!) that makes frozen milk taste off to the baby. This probably ins’t helpful since I can’t remember the name of what it’s called, but it might be worth looking into.
I wish you the best and hope something works soon!
A couple suggestions:
– you may have extra lipase in your bm. You have to scald the milk prior to freezing to get rid of the soapy taste. Check kellymom.com for details.
-if your son doesn’t want anything from a bottle, it may not be a lipase problem. Make a bottle that is half bm/half formula. Have someone else
offer it to him before he is hungry. Leave the house for a while.
-try different bottles. We use born free (not glass b/c daycare won’t allow them). Izzy does just fine with them.
Yes, lipase! That’s what I was trying to think of!
are we talking milk or nipples?
The way I read this, there are two separate issues.
First is that your son is refusing to take bottles from you. If this is the case, then I absolutely agree with the above commenters about having someone else feed him a bottle when you are not around. This means leaving him with someone else around mealtime, with you being in range in case there is a total meltdown. And I also recommend the Dr. Brown’s bottles.
Second issue is what he will eat. And this is where I think investing in a breast pump will be helpful. Specifically, can you rent a hospital grade one to try? Yes, pumping is a complete pain, but it does result in breastmilk that can be refrigerated. Start there. If all works out, try frozen or move on to formula.
Fingers crossed that it all works out!
I was going to say the lipase thing too! And the bottle problem? Torture! We finally found one that works for us – the Lanisoh Momma bottle.
He’ll eventually take it. Both bottle and formula. If you can make the pumping work, great. If not, formula is fine. Never heard of the lipase problem. Be aware, Kelly site is sort of bf militant.
Anyway, sounds flippant but if you wait long enough he will take the bottle. With my 2nd I just never got around to trying the bottle and boom I was back at work at 5 mo. DH was home. I also didn’t have a huge backup. That first day DD2 went 5-6 hours then finally accepted the bottle of formula. I was freaked. Also I found out like 3 weeks later DH was making the formula up 2x concentrated (at that point it was about 50:50 b/f–oh yeah I had top of the line pump and pumped 3x a day at work and never came close to making enough, and as the months went by I got less and less. So saying ” just pump it’s better” isn’t really helpful.)
We used dr brown bottles. What’s interesting is my first was smaller than the 2nd but at 5-6 mo she was already on stage 3 nipples. My 2nd never could handle a stage 3–she stayed on stage 2 up to 14 mo when we stopped using those bottles. You may want to try diff stage nipples. Maybe the flow is too slow it too fast.
I had two breastmilk snobs. DD #1 would not take any kind of bottle from anyone under any circumstances. By 5 months, under advice from our doctor, we fed her breastmilk mixed with rice cereal from a spoon. She would lap up enough from the spoon, to hold her off for the 5 or 6 hours that I would be gone. (We didn’t have daycare, however). Medela also used to make (maybe still does?) these little flexible feeding cups (kind of like small medicine cups, which would probably also work). You can tip a little bit into the baby’s mouth.
DD #2 was happy with the bottle, but was very sensitive to lipase. So we had to scald all the milk before freezing it or refrigerating, and then it had to be heated to exactly body temperature. And once we did these gymnastics, it was no problem.
But if I were in your shoes, I would do formula + cereal (if pumping is a pain) plus other solids for a 9-month old, and you should be able to leave. You might find that your baby will “reverse cycle” and want to nurse a ton at night in exchange.
Wow! OK so everyone is really raving about these Dr. Brown’s bottles… I’m gonna give those a try. The lipase thing is super interesting, but I’m not sure that’s really the problem because when I left Max for 24 hours when he was 5 months old, he had no problem taking the defrosted breastmilk. Also having other people give him the bottle doesn’t seem to make a difference — both my husband and friend have tried when I’ve been out of the house and Max has refused to drink anything. I dunno, I’m tempted to agree with Working Mom of 2 — if he’s genuinely thirsty, he’ll suck it up (literally) and take the damn bottle. He’s eating a lot of solids now, so I’m not overly concerned about the nutrients not being sufficient, especially if I can still breastfeed morning and night with him. Ugh… anyway, guess I just have to try a bunch of different things with him now and see what works!
My daughter was a snob too. Hubby fed her breast milk from a large eye dropper when I returned to work. It was a pain in the ass, but it worked for him. Have you looked into renting a pump? It’s cheaper than buying one, and most hospitals that have birthing units will rent out hospital grade pumps.
Just curious how many times you guys have tried giving him the bottles? My kiddo was incredibly stubborn. We had to find the right bottles (Tommee Tippee, for us), the right temp (1 min per oz in the bottle warmer), the right position (my husband has to hold him on his knee, sitting almost totally upright, facing outward, so that the baby knows it’s bottle time and doesn’t expect a breast), and especially the right attitude (like it was not a big deal to us really whether he took it or not.) Even so, the whole ordeal took two full months, literally every single day, with me leaving the room/house and my husband trying to get our son to take the bottle. Thank god we started well before I had to go back to work! We went through my entire stash of frozen breastmilk and nearly broke my heart, BUT once he finally gave in we have had no troubles, even when we started supplementing with formula last week because my milk is suddenly dwindling and the pump is proving insufficient to keep my supply up. He made some funny faces but he hates to be hungry and he knows the bottle will fill up his tummy so he took it anyway. He even lets me feed him that way now.
As you know, if your babe is hungry enough he will eat. The best advice I can offer is to stick to your plan and be consistent, offer the bottle/cup/formula/alternative you’ve chosen every day, same time of day if you can, and act like this is just the way things are. Good luck!!!
My son is exactly the same (he’s now 16 months old and really prefers breastfeeding at source over bottle still – I only breastfeed at night now that I’m back at work). I was in the same predicament. After speaking to his doctor and the fact that he was in the first decile for height and weight, the dr suggested going straight to cow’s milk since he was refusing formula and pumped breastmilk – he liked the taste of it and while he doesn’t drink a ton of it, he drinks enough between that and water to stay hydrated. Oh and he liked drinking it cold – not warmed up. I guess it was different enough that he didn’t associate it with replacing breastmilk but as something else to drink. Not great but he has a balanced diet in everything else he eats. He gets his calcium intake in lots of other places like yoghurt (loves it!) and cheese. Also, he never got the hang of bottles so went straight to sippy cups using the trainer sippy/bottle cup from NUK as a transition – also worked well since I never had to take away the bottle from him (unlike his sister who refused to drink milk from a sippy cup until she was 3…..) Hope that helps!