Weaning from Bottle to Boobies

At week 2 or 3, Baby J had gone from breast to drinking exclusively from the bottle (breastmilk). We had to move to the bottle in week 2 because he had lost weight from birth, a lot of weight. After I had my first mommy meltdown we went into feeding frenzy mode. When babies nurse we have no idea how much milk they are actually drinking, J was nursing enough times per day and for long periods, but it turns out my milk hadn't come in fully yet and I had no idea. So I pumped and bottlefed for a full week just to be able to track exactly how much he was consuming, every ounce was recorded. A few times a day I'd nurse him just to get the stimulation but not really expecting him to get milk. At the end of that one week, he started to reject the breast and wanted only the bottle. Enter the second mommy meltdown.

It was terrible, I was awash with hormones, exhausted, frustrated, scared for my shrinking baby, and now I was being rejected. I couldn't accept that our nursing relationship was over, I missed him too much, so we set about figuring out how to put him back on the breast. It CAN be done, with some strategies I found online and some patience, we were able to nurse again. Here's my list of tips, as always most come from kellymom:

1. Attempts to put him on the breast should be well-timed. Don't try to do it when he is really hungry, he will be frantic and frustrated. Try it when he is relaxed and sleepy, either before sleep or as soon as he wakes up to feed.

2. If he clearly doesn't even want to try, don't force the issue. Try to put him on the breast every time you think he might be in the mood, if he doesn't want it, move on to the bottle. Angering him by forcing the breast will just make him dislike the boob even more.

3. Have lots of skin-to-skin when attempting to nurse, you will both be more likely to succeed if you don't have clothes. That skin2skin stuff really works, even if you think it's hokey and too crunchy granola, do it, it works. Trust. This is the same reason why babywearing and cosleeping work for nursing moms.

4. Get your boob started by expressing some milk, if your milk has let down already by the time he starts drinking he will be less frustrated about the slowness of the boob compared to the bottle.

5. Finally, follow all the other pieces of advice on latch (wait for fully open mouth, fish lips, he should be facing the boob and not have his head turned) so that he can get a lot of milk.

I did this for about a week, and at the end of it he was back on the breast almost full-time. At around 4 months he was going seamlessly from bottle to boob and back with no problems!