I recently started a new position with a family with a 9 year old girl and a 3 month old baby girl. The older girl is in school most of day so my duties are 95% with the baby. The mother is returning to work January 12th. I have been here 5 hours a day since the start of December and will be full time as of Moms first day of work.Here's the problem. The baby hates..I mean screams, wails and shakes when attempting bottle feeding. Mom is breast feeding, pumps, and plans to continue for a year.
I have tried every method, position, 4 different nipple types..no success at all. She either wails till she falls asleep from exhaustion or Mom comes home and nurses her. Even if she misses a meal, she will awake, be fine, then start wailing when she realizes she's hungry. Its been a month now and not even a speck of progress. I am dreading the day Mom goes to work. She seems unconcerned and says baby will adjust after she's away 8-10 hours a day.
I have been a nanny to 3 other infants in the last 8 years, never seen anything like this. I had no problems with any of the other three babies. I've read online that some never will take a bottle and go directly to sippy cups etc. Anyone ever had experience with this?? I am very anxious for Baby number one..and myself number two, dreading hours of wailing. Baby likes me otherwise, she smiles, cuddles with me, sleeps on me for naps, we play and she giggles..but the second the bottle appears...her face screws up and she turns beet red and the screaming starts.
This is a lovely family and I want to stay, but I'm starting to get the vibe they think its me..not the bottle Baby doesn't like, even though she reacts the same to a bottle from Dad, Mom and Gramma.
I am at my wits end..advice???? I'm imagining a starved baby greeting Mom at the door at night then keeping her awake all night feeding!
32 comments:
Have you tried this bottle:
http://www.adiri.com/
It is very Boob-like and it works for a lot of children who refuse bottles.
If you put the baby in a car seat to feed her and offer her the bottle from behind (where she cannot see you) she might take it. Just face her towards a toy or video (hate to suggest video coma, but sometimes it can be a positive thing) while you sneak feed her.
You could spoon feed her the milk.
Or what you can do, is ask the mom maybe for a shirt that she wears around the house. Something with her scent on it. Put it next to your chest when you feed the baby. Or feed her in a relaxing calm environment. So shes not overly stimulated. Like a darkenened room, with soft music playing.
Have you seen Meet the Faulkers and Meet the Parents? In one of those the guy wears a fake boob to feed the baby. Do they actually sell those? Maybe you could use something like that.
Well, your 1st clue is "mom seems unconcerned". How sad. I wonder why it's not important to her that her baby progresses with a bottle, and I can understand your concern with her coming home at night to a starving baby. But I doubt that will happen.. because mom will end up coming home several times through-out the day to feed the baby. Maybe then it will start to concern her.
In the meantime, I have to agree with "Bee's Knees". I think trying another type of bottle, especially this one that is so close to a breast, and "sneak feeding", is an excellent suggestion. I've seen other family members take this approach to difficult babies, with success.
Good luck, I hope it works out for you.
Soon feed her the milk? No, no, no. The baby is 3 mo old, she'll choke.
I understand. I was just learning how some babies don't want to take a bottle. And different ways to feed them. I didn't mean to fill a spoon and shove it in their mouth. Tiny tiny amount you can put on a baby spoon. Or in a tiny cup. But I wouldn't recommend the cup unless you have a consultant their to show you how to do it. It not like us drinking out of a cup, theres a technique.
My daughter was the same way. Luckily I didn't have to return to work. We tried EVERYTHING, the breast-bottle, quiet rooms, different family members feeding her. None of it worked, finally because it wasn't a necessity, we gave up and I nursed until she was ready for a cup. (And continued nursing beyond that, but at least had an option at that point).
I hate to say it, but some babies just won't do it. It's sad that the mom is unconcerned with it.
good luck!
BYW, I am addicted to this site :). I don't have a nanny nor have I ever been one, but for some reason, I can't get enough of reading isyn!
OP, my best friend had this problem with ALL 3 of her babies. None of them would ever take a bottle, but she was a SAHM, so she just dealt with nursing until they were old enough to try sippy cups. Mom may be unconcerned, but she probably also doesn't realise that this problem may NOT resolve itself, and she WILL have to concern herself with it one way or another.
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Repost for Anonymous:
Anonymous said...
to "just a mom"--when was she ready for a cup?
we have a similar problem with our little girl. but as a mom, I am VERY concerned.
4:10 PM
With any infant, you just have to be patient. Just keep trying. If you need a break, take one. Don't get frustrated, babies, even infants, can sense this. It takes time- for baby to go from breast to bottle- especially if the bottle is not giving by mom.
Best of luck
(Never) Just a Mom,
Thank you for your kind words.
To Anonymous
I think around 5-6 months we started her on a sippy. We also started giving her very watery rice cereal (made with breast milk) around 4-4.5 months with a spoon so at least she could get some nutrients from a source other than me.
I got very tired of being the only source for food and it was tough those first few months, but we made it!
Anonymous said...
RE-POST For Anonymous:
Does the mother at least pump milk? If she does you might want to try the cheapy walmart bottles with the bumpy nipple. My daughter was like that too. I bought every single name brand bottle that said were the best and NOTHING worked. Then I saw that bottle and figured I'd only be out 90 some cents and it actually worked.
4:49 PM
RE-POST FOR ANONYMOUS
YOU NEED TO PICK A MONIKER! :)
RE-POST FOR ANONYMOUS:
Anonymous said...
I had the same problem and the baby finally took the bottle at 4 months I was harried and frustrated.She likes formula in the bottle and i spiked it with apple juice worked for me
4:53 PM
RE-POST FOR ANONYMOUS
YOU NEED TO PICK A MONIKER! :)
A soft tip sippy cup will probably work. I used one by Avent with my first child. He was exclusively breast fed. He didn't take well to bottles so we went right for the soft tip sippy (for defrosted breast milk). It worked great.
Most likely you're in for a few rough days, maybe a week or so when mom is gone f/t.
Majority of babies WILL take the bottle. My nephew was EXTREMELY anti-bottle. We finally got him to take the nuk nipples. But for the first 2 weekends of my sister being gone 16hrs/day I did whatever I needed to to get nutrition in him.
For us, this meant dropper feeding him some of his bottles and taking him to mom at work once/day to feed. (again, 16 hour day.) He did eventually take them without a fuss and after 3-4 weeks (6-8 days) he was perfect with the bottle. For the dropper feedings he was often screaming and would occasionally gag a little on the milk. Felt awful for him, but it did the job and he came out of it just fine. :) he was 3mos old at the time.
Patience, lots of it.
Wow, 3 months old and sounds like she's throwing a temper tantrum to get the milk the way she wants. Have you tried different temperatures of milk? Try to get it as close to the Mommy milk temp as possible.
I agree w/ the Mom, the baby will cave in eventually, she can't go that long w/o milk. I think once the Mom is gone it will work itself out.
And this is the problem with people who never give their baby a bottle when they are newborns and then expect them to take a bottle easy peasy at 2 months old....
I worked w/a Lactation Specialist for several years. Babies can be spoon fed, specialty feeding cup, or even by syringe, if necessary. I have also worked for one family that the baby never would take "anything" other than Moms breast. He literally fasted all day until Mom came home and recieved his calories co-sleeping at night. Sounds weird, but babies can go 8, 10, 12 hrs at night w/o feeding...this baby just switched his feeding schedule to the nights and went all day w/o eating. I worried about it at first, but realized he was gaining weight and not too fussy. It was hard on Mom to nurse him all night, which contributed to the co-sleeping, but it worked until he finally started some solids.
I think what you first should do is bring this up to your employer again, stress the importance and your concern and why she should be concerned too.
But I do think that a lot of people here had some great ideas!
Have you tried asking the mother to feed the baby using a baby bottle? That may help the baby "accept" the bottle. (plus the other consequence of the mother actually seeing how difficult this is).
A baby who is three months old and never had a bottle may not take to it very well. We had the same issue with my son. I went back to school when he was not quite four months old. He refused EVERY bottle we tried. However, he did learn to drink from a sippy cup within the first two weeks of trying.
We also began giving him solids (with his doctor's guidance) and he did well with those. He was allergic to the baby cereals, but did well with pureed peas (with water added to thin them out).
We found that consistency was the key. Are you giving the baby multiple chances to try the same bottle? My son resisted the sippy cup at first, too, but we consistently offered the same one. Eventually, he tried it.
The last piece of advice I have is to send the mom away while you try. To another room, to the yard, to the store...whatever it takes. If I was near, my son would not accept anything but the breast. However, he did just fine while I was at school and he was home with my husband.
Best wishes!
i am prepared for ppl to tell me how bad this is:
my goddaughter wouldn't drink from anything but her mother's breast at 3 months until mom had a bad accident and was in the icu for a few days. i dipped the corner of a baby washcloth in milk and let her suck the milk out of the washcloth. just a thought.
gabriela
I actually think that's a pretty neat idea! I can't think of any reason it would be bad, as long as the cloth is in very good (new-ish) shape, and there aren't any loose threads.
You do what you gotta do to get a fussy infant to feed, and sometimes you have to be really innovative.
My child is the same way, but I was lucky that I could take him to work with me (I am also a nanny). I ended up having my mother spoon feed him pumped milk when I had to leave him with her for a while. You can also try a syringe.
You could try bouncing up and down on an exercise ball while holding the baby and giving her the bottle. The disconcerting motion of the bouncing may throw the baby off and get her to suck on the bottle. This has worked for some babies.
Hmm, I just had an odd thought. If the mom has never tried a nipple cover (I forget what they are called-the plastic nipple with a hole in it that goes OVER mom's nipple, for babies who have some trouble latching on), maybe she could try that, and if the baby gets used to mom's breast with that on, would then be more willing to accept a plastic/silicone/rubber nipple on a bottle. Just a thought.
I remembered one time when my little guy was teeny weeny newborn and hysterically wanting to nurse but was screaming and just couldn't settle down enough to latch on, my hubby thought to bring the nipple guard up to his mouth and THEN stick it onto my breast, and it worked like a charm.
RE-POST FOR ANONYMOUS:
Anonymous said...
i baby sat two different children from 2 different families that had this issue. I tried dropping the milk slowly into the side of the mouth. walking around while feeding and al ot of the things you have tried... sometimes it just takes time... one of the babies was a bit older and finally occasionally took a bottle in the infant swing holding it herself. It also helps to time feedings right so that the baby isn't stressed by being too hungry or is not hungry enough... helps if you are calm and smiling as well when introducing a bottle.
5:11 PM
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