free shipping on purchases over R500I had to go back to work three months after having Shane, so I tried bottle feeding for the first time about two and a half weeks before that. Until then, I’d been really happy breastfeeding. He was eating well, and it was much easier – especially at night. He had a pacifier, so I figured he’d take a bottle no problem. But from day one, he just refused.
He’d scream his head off any time I tried to give him a bottle. Wouldn’t even put it in his mouth. I tried all the brands my friends used, but he refused them all. It was heartbreaking when he was so upset, and of course I worried about how he’d be at daycare when I went back to work.
Bree finding the right bottle
I just had to be strong, tell myself that he’d eventually take the bottle when he was hungry! But he was my first baby so it wasn’t that easy. And my partner lived overseas at the time so I was pretty much by myself. I knew he wouldn’t starve, but I was pretty distraught.
When I went back to work it was always a battle at daycare to get him to take his bottle. It went on for weeks. I started trying to pump at work, to see if he’d take breastmilk from the bottle, but I found that really uncomfortable and it made no difference anyway, he just hated bottles.
But then he got to four months and it all changed. We tried him on a new bottle brand with a softer nipple, shaped more like a real breast, and he loved it right away. I’m not sure if it was that particular bottle, or we just reached a time when he finally caved in, but he even got a bit obsessed with it. He was never one for teddies but would carry his bottle around with him all day. He even decided to drop his pacifier all by himself at about 7 months, but wouldn’t give up his bottle. In the end, it was a real pain to try and wean him off it!
