One month old takes the bottle from me only if her amma is out of the room

mango_marigold_92302 May 2026

We've started one bottle of expressed milk in the evening so my partner can sleep a proper stretch. School is shut for the summer, so I'm home and happy to do it. Problem: if her amma is anywhere nearby, our daughter refuses the bottle and screams like I've insulted the whole family. Amma goes out to the balcony, shuts the door, and the same baby drinks the full thing calmly with me, looking at me like nothing happened 🙂 Is this normal at one month, or are we building some habit we'll regret? Partner says she has to leave the room for her own daughter to eat.

3 comments

cedar_pigeon_74222 May 2026
Very common, and it's mostly about smell. Ours did the same at around four weeks. What helped was what you're already doing, with one change: my partner left the room before he woke for that feed, not halfway through once he'd started fussing. By about eight weeks he didn't care who was around. We also warmed the bottle in a bowl of hot water instead of the steriliser. He seemed to take it faster, though that may have been coincidence.
moss_bottle_53832 May 2026
my daughter did exactly this 15 years back. my partner used to take her up to the terrace for the evening bottle, round and round the water tank, and she'd finish it. if i came up the stairs halfway she'd stop and look for me. it passed in a few weeks. my partner still talks about those terrace evenings, so enjoy them
pebble_fern_79075 May 2026
Three days on, is the balcony still needed? With our son the trick stopped working at about two months and he started refusing the bottle from everyone, which was worse. We kept one bottle a day going after that even when it wasn't strictly needed, just so he wouldn't forget how. If there's any chance you'll need bottles later in the year, that one evening feed is worth protecting.