Babies and bottles...

[HootersGsy]

This might not be the right forum but it is certainly affecting my health!

Our second child is now 3 months old. She has been breastfed (more on this later) and absolutely clings to mum, to the point where she will only fall asleep with a nipple in her mouth and literally clings to it all night long.

We've been trying bottles for some time now, various different ones, different times of day, putting some breastmilk on the teat etc. but all she does is push the teat around her mouth before starting to scream at you. She also will not take a dummy, which amusingly our first (19months) finds very bemusing as she goes to bed cuddling multiple dummies (which we are also trying to wean her off!).

We really need to crack this as unhappy wife = unhappy life.

Finally, while I can hold her and she's fine, if mum goes out of sight the screaming only takes a few minutes (at most) to start.

I'm not expecting a miracle solution but does anyone have any ideas on what we can try to get past this? Mum is exhausted and I have been very worried about PND at times though feels like we're past the worst of that particular hurdle; I feel rather useless; and our toddler isn't a fan of the screaming either!

[badgerade]

You could try calling the NCT feeding line: https://www.nct.org.uk/baby-toddler/feeding/early-...

My wife is one of the team that work on there, often giving out advice for situations similar to yours.

[DoubleSix]

Tough out the noise for a few nights.

Training babies, and young kids to an extent, is just conditioning - they soon learn what they can and can’t have IF you are consistent.

[AAD44H]

I would recommend that you try the 'pre-made' bottles you can buy from the supermarket with formula in that come with a teat. These seem to be the most natural and the milk will almost pour out therefore shouldn't need to suck as much. Best of luck, I am currently dealing with 7 month old twins .

[essayer]

I know that the Philips bottles for example have different sized teats for different ages - I’d try the higher flow ones

Also are you using BM or formula? If latter she may not be sure of the taste

[malks222]

get yourself over to the expectant dads thread:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

not only about people expecting, plenty of parenting chat/ advice etc......

I don’t have anything to help unfortunately. Mrs malks has been BF’ing since the start, but we’ve always given a bottle of expressed milk as a final night feed. Our little one 3.5months, thankfully isn’t too fussy about boob or bottle, and even tried some formula just to see that she would take it and the fat little pie just takes anything!

I think you may have to just tough it out for a night or 2 on the bottle. but hopefully on the dads thread someone can give some better advice

[a311]

HootersGsy said:

This might not be the right forum but it is certainly affecting my health!!

I've no answers we've been in a similar position but our boy is nearly one. Our daughter almost 4 was bottle fed when breast feeding didn't work out, and took a dummy. She was no poster child for perfect sleeping but was in her own room from less than 2 months. He's the opposite, we tried to introduce a bottle so I could feed him but he's never taken anything artifical in his mouth...... We've tried some controlled crying but his commitment is impressive as he can happily go for 2 hours without tiring himself out.

You've got to be on the same page when it comes to this sort of thing and my wife is quite a bit softer than I am and can't listen to him cry to for too long. A big part of this is not wanting to wake his sister up. One positive from the lockdown is I can get up ealry with him and let her have a few more hours-another great feature of his sleeping pattern is he likes to get up at 5am.

Sorry no great answer, when you've another and you're already tired you'll usually take the easiest option. But I'd adivse a short term pain for long term gain approach.

[HootersGsy]

Thank you for the ideas, we've tried breast and formula in the bottle with the same results. Such a different experience to our first, she was happy so long as she had food (boob or bottle) and someone to change her nappy!

Essayer, we're using the Philips bottles, among multiple others(!) but I've realised we still have type 1 teats in there which probably are far too slow now. Will try switching to a 3 and see if that's better.

AAD44H - I have no idea how you do it with twins! I think I'd be in a looney bin by now!

I suspect this weekend will be me listening to screaming for hours trying to battle through, my wife can't cope with it for more than a few minutes.