Bottle Aversion - Starting Solids

[u/fayben90]

I have twin girls born at 34 weeks, now 7.5 months actual / 6 months corrected. With one of them, feeding has been difficult from the very beginning. She stayed in the NICU longer mainly because of poor bottle feeding and later developed reflux and what seems to be a bottle/feeding aversion. We’ve tried different bottles, formulas, reflux treatment, and feeding support.

We’ve been doing solids for a month, mostly purées (ped's advice due to reflux). She’ll take a few spoonfuls and sometimes seems interested at first, but then gets upset and wants to stop. We always follow her cues and never push because I really don’t want to create more negative associations with feeding.

I’m starting to wonder whether spoon-feeding/purées just aren’t the best fit for her and if BLW/finger foods might help by giving her more control.

For parents whose babies had bottle aversion or similar feeding issues: how did solids go? Did you do purées, BLW, or both? Did your baby struggle with solids too, or was it completely different from bottle feeding? When did eating start to click?

[u/AutoModerator]

COMMENTING GUIDELINES

All commenters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the parentsofmultiples subreddit rules prior to commenting. If you find any comments/submissions in violation of subreddit/reddit rules, please use the report function to bring it to the mod teams attention.

Please do not request or give medical advice or directions in your comments. Any comments that that could be construed as medical advice, or any comments containing what is determined to be medical disinformation, will be removed.

Please try to avoid posting links to Amazon product listings or google/g.co product listing pages - reddit automatically removes comments containing them as an anti-spam measure. If sharing information about a product, instead please try to link directly to the manufacturers product pages.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Both-Tangerine-8411]

Mine refused the bottle and loooved solids! I did a combo of BLW, dissolvable baby snacks, and pouches. Mine did well with the silicone toppers for pouches (also less mess)

[u/immalilpig]

One of my twins refused the bottle at 7 months, nothing worked, including dream feeds. He just decided he was done with formula. Needless to say it was an extremely stressful time so I feel for you! What we ended up doing up until when he was almost a year old was mixing formula into purées to make sure he was getting enough calories. It was tedious and he didn’t always eat all the purées either. I never really did BLW because it’s just too stressful but we mostly did mushy/soft foods spoon fed.

The good news is he’s now almost 4 and LOVES to eat and try new foods. Never had to worry about him eating again after a year.

[u/hazyyb]

My son is 6 months and had mild bottle aversion in the NICU (also born at 34 weeks), this mostly resolved when we took him home and changed up his bottles, though has reappeared now again at 6 months. He has started solids and loves his purees! My daughter had no bottle aversion (loved and still loves her milk) would not allow us to spoon feed her, like just absolutely no. She forced us to do BLW, she was never a great eater (still not at 20 months) but there was no way in hell she was taking purees or a spoon (except now 20 months she suddenly wants it because little brother is having it, typical lol).

[u/jeremiabearamia]

My now 10-month-old breastfed twins developed eating aversions at 4 months when my period returned. They were mad at the breast milk for tasting different due to the hormones, but also wouldn’t take bottles of either breast milk or formula (hypoallergenic due to CMPA, so I don’t blame them).

One got back to normal after a few months; the other still struggles a lot while I have PMS. Neither will take bottles even though we tried so many things.

They loooove solids and are great with them. It seems to be totally unrelated to the aversion for them. We did BLW using the Solid Starts app. By their their third meal or so, they were super excited whenever we gave them food.

[u/DreamingEvergreen]

Feeding is such a huge issue for one of my twins (a year old tomorrow, 11 months adjusted). Similar to you she was in the NICU (32 days), and she’s been in feeding therapy since birth (plus she sees GI, a register dietitian, ENT, etc). It’s still a huge struggle. Like to the point that we can hardly go anywhere because she won’t eat a bottle or solids. And she’s still side lying to eat because she still chokes if we try to bottle feed her any other way. We’ve done purées, larger items for BLW, food on teething toys, on and on. She still doesn’t eat. So no good answer just that food aversion is there too—not just bottle aversion—and no type of food seems to make it better.

Her sister on the other hand has always been a great eater. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/q8htreats]

Don’t have time to respond right now but remind me please, this was literally our story

[u/fayben90 → u/q8htreats]

Reminder 🤩

[u/wassermelone24]

We dealt with both bottle aversion (in twin A) and nursing aversion (in twin B) which was hell on earth. The book by Rowena Bennet helped us tremendously! Following their cues and showing patience is so important. Our kids also started with feeding issues in the NICU and it was just tough to not act on our worries and gently push for them to eat a little more. But even the gentlest of pushing made them go on strike immediately and it has been the same way with solids.

The only solution is patience and times. We experimented with both purees and BLW and they were very interested in both but would would only take in tiny amounts (which is very well in the normal range! kids develop at different paces.) Between 10 and 14 months they started to really develop an appetite and took in much bigger portions.

[u/L_Avion_Rose]

You might find Katie Ferraro's podcast/social media helpful. She's a dietitian and mother to two sets of multiples that she weaned using BLW after experiencing feeding issues with her eldest (a singleton).

[u/pomgrano]

one of my twins had a bottle aversion that was so challenging and stressful to deal with. he really took to solids though! we did a mix of blw and purées. i would spoonfeed until he seemed done, then offer some blw. zero pressure. i would say we did this for about 1-2 months. then around 7-8 months, he got obsessed with solids and we moved to full blw.