This Is The First Thing You Should Do If Your Baby Is Refusing A Bottle

All you wanted was one night off to have dinner with your husband. Is that so much to ask? After your pregnancy, you were blessed to have several weeks to spend holding, nursing, and bonding with your sweet little one, but you’re ready for a change of scenery. So, in anticipation of your date night, you decided to introduce your baby to a bottle so that they could enjoy your carefully pumped breastmilk even when you’re not around. For a few minutes you thought it was going well, but after fumbling around it became clear: your baby is refusing the bottle.

Moms have all sorts of reactions to this common occurrence, but usually they’re not very optimistic. First there’s confusion, then frustration, then this sinking feeling that you’ll be attached at the hip until they leave for kindergarten...That’s just a joke of course, but seriously, what’s a Mom to do when it looks like sweet baby demands the breast or nothing?

The first thing you should do if your baby is refusing a bottle is so simple, most moms miss it. Don’t panic, just try a different bottle. I know what you’re thinking. It’s too easy. It couldn’t possibly be the bottle that’s causing all the trouble, but indeed, it can.

They may look exactly the same to us, but to your little baby, there’s actually a huge difference between the breast and the artificial nipple that’s attached to most baby bottles. According to Dr. Sears, “To get milk from the breast, baby must coordinate tongue and jaw movements in a sucking motion that’s unique to breastfeeding. Babies suck from a bottle entirely differently. Thanks to gravity, milk flows from a bottle so easily that baby does not have to suck “correctly” to get milk.”