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Hi guys, I'm Melissa. Welcome back to CloudMom. Answering a question today from a YouTube
viewer, Guryain Sharma, "I have a six month old baby who will not take the bottle, what
can I do?" Great question. I went through this with my first two babies. I was so scared
that they would reject the breast from the bottle that I waited a very long time to introduce
the bottle. And when it came time to introduce the bottle, they didn't want it. I had to
go back to work, and I was very, very stressed out. So here is what worked for me, and there's
a whole panoply of little things you could try. First of all, I would experiment with
different types of nipples and flow. You don't know exactly what type of *** your baby
will prefer. I actually have a show on bottle options that I filmed a while back that I
will link to. Since then I think there have been some other really interesting products
that have come onto the marketplace. You also want to look at the flow of the ***. You
might have a flow that's too slow, and that might be frustrating for your baby; or on
the other side, too fast. So you want to look at the numbers for those and try to find the
right flow. Okay, so, with the right bottle, what else can you do? Okay, guess what? Don't
be the one to give your baby the bottle. Get out of the house! If he knows that Madam Breast,
or she, is nearby, he will sniff that baby out and he will want the breast. He will never
take the bottle from you. Babies are so smart, and they can smell that breast milk on you.
And they will never take the bottle from you. So this is a great time to get your partner,
or your mom, or your mother-in-law or your best friend to come in and deal with your
baby while you go out and have a good time. Just kidding, but you should take a break
and get out of the house, because you won't be able to handle the screaming. And you'll
be tempted to give in and give your baby the breast, because you'll be worried that your
baby will starve. So don't be the one to give the bottle, and you will have a greater likelihood
of having the baby take that bottle. Number three tip, do this as the first bottle of
the day. I found that's when my babies were the most hungry. They were desperate. If you're
all set up with the bottle, they'll be more likely to take it then, than at other points
during the day when they might be less hungry. Okay? Alright. What about what goes in the
bottle? Okay. Don't be like exclusively breastfeeding your baby, and then be like, "Oh, here's a
bottle and here's some formula. Why don't you try it out?" No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Never going to go for that. In my experience, if yours is different please weigh in, you
need nice, warmed mommy's breast milk...so that it's very close to the breastfeeding
experience. Okay, I have another video on how to safely warm the breast milk so that
all the healthy properties of the breast milk remain in tact. This is very important. You're
not using the microwave, nor water that is too hot. So check that video out. Make sure
you have that nice, warmed breast milk. Over time, what you can start to do once your baby
takes the bottle, is to mix in tiny little bits of formula. A little more at a time if
you're trying to make that transition so you get to half and half and then mostly formula.
And over time that's a good way to sort of transition your baby to formula, if you're
interested in doing that. Okay, final tip, once your baby's taking the bottle, how many
bottles should you give? Well, this was also a problem for me, because when I went back
to work and my babies were having upwards of three bottles a day, I could then have
a hard time getting them to get back on the breast. So that was stressful. So my advice
there, sorry you can hear some kids screaming in the background here. My advice there is
to make sure that you give as few bottles as necessary. So that if you are home, and
you've left work and you have the opportunity to directly give the breast, always do that.
Don't then give bottles at night and on the weekend, because it's very, very likely that
your baby will wean from the breast. And unless it's what you want to do, it's something you
want to be aware of. So anyway, I hope this is helpful to you. Please write in, let me
know how it's going. Other moms, if you have tips on how you got your baby to take the
bottle, please weigh in. It's a really, really important thing for moms, especially moms
who are going back to work outside of the home. We'd love to hear from you, and thank
you so much for watching CloudMom.