my baby refuses milk

[shay84]

hi

My baby is now 6 months and since she was born she hated drinking milk and use to drink very little breastmilk and maybe 1 or 2oz from bottle, but now she screams if she even sees the bottle, whats weird that she will happily drink juice or water from bottle but just wont drink milk, this is making it very hard as i cant leave her with anyone or even go out incase she needs a feed.

I have started feeding her solids since 5 months and that another task its usually takes me 1 hour to get 2 spoons in her.

she is quite small but is putting on weight very slowly???


any ideas

[DrP]

Have you tried any other sort of drinking cups, even a normal beaker which she could sip from if someone holds it.

What about using something like readybrek to thicken the milk enough to spoon feed it to her, without it being too thick (so more milk than cereal). I have a friend whose baby would never take milk from a bottle, it was bf or nothing, but she had some success giving milky cereal and used that in place of a feed for the odd occassion that she would have to leave the baby with someone. Or do something similar with banana - make a banana milkshake by blitzing up some banana and milk and see if she will take that.

Try and avoid the juice if you can and just give her water if you are giving her something other than milk to drink, apart from the sugar content juice can fill them up making them less hungry for milk or food.

[shay84]

i have tried beakers and sippy cups as well as changing the bottle and milk but no joy i also tried the cereal but she wont even let the bottle close to her lips.


is there any flavour i can add to milk which is safe for babies to get rid of the milk taste.

[DrP]

If you are adding cereal don't put it in a bottle. Make it just thicker than milk and try feeding from a bowl. Similarly try doing the same with milk and fruit smoothies. You could blitz up some milk, and fruit (fresh or cooked purees) to make some smoothies and see would she take these. You could also add some natural yoghurt (unsweetened) to them as well, but I would avoid putting them in a bottle and just try spoon feeding.