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Shelly De Caria first tried to give her daughter Daniela a bottle of expressed milk when she was three months old, but she would have nothing to do with it. ?She would not take that first suck,? the Ottawa mom recalls. ?It was so frustrating.?
Many parents want their breastfed babies to take a bottle, whether it?s so the other parent can help with middle-of-the night feedings, or mom can get out for a bit of time on her own. But not every baby willingly goes for bottle feeding. ?There really are no guarantees,? says Nancy Mohrbacher, lactation consultant and author of Working and Breastfeeding Made Simple. ?The baby is a person with an opinion.? Still, there are ways to increase your chances of success. First, so that introducing the bottle doesn?t interfere with breastfeeding, you should wait to do it until your baby is at least least three or four weeks old, says Mohrbacher, and only if she is latching well while breastfeeding. Then, make sure both the baby and the person giving the bottle are calm. ?Don’t try to introduce a bottle when your baby is really worked up,? cautions Ottawa lactation consultant Fleur Bickford, adding that a good time might be when the baby is just waking up from a sleep.

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