Bottle refusal
Also called bottle refuser, bottle refusers, refusing the bottle, refuses the bottle, won't take a bottle
Bottle refusal is when a breastfed baby won't accept a bottle, whether it holds expressed breast milk or formula. Parents call a baby who does this a bottle refuser.
How it's said
Has anyone successfully solved bottle refusal?
They were recommended to me by friends who had bottle refusers.
My youngest was a bottle refuser.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- Nipple confusion usually means a breastfed baby who gets used to a bottle and starts to prefer it. Bottle refusal is the other way round: the baby prefers the breast and won't take the bottle.
Where it came from
Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University wrote in 2023 that there is no formal definition of bottle refusal by a breastfed baby. Older writing filed it under nipple confusion, and a 1995 paper described a second kind of nipple confusion where an older baby who breastfeeds well refuses a bottle.
In 2020 the same Liverpool team defined it as a breastfed baby who first or repeatedly refuses a bottle of expressed milk or formula. Their survey drew 841 UK mothers, and a 2023 follow-up study read 597 posts by parents about it.