What’s Really Causing Your Baby’s Bottle Aversion?

Bottle aversion is a process, not a moment

When a baby develops bottle aversion, it rarely begins with refusal. What parents usually experience as a sudden change is almost always the point at which something that has been building beneath the surface finally becomes visible. Bottle aversion reflects your baby’s accumulated experience of feeding and how that experience has been processed by their body and nervous system over time.

Your baby is not responding to a single feed. They are responding to a pattern. Each feeding interaction leaves an imprint. Over many repetitions, those imprints shape whether feeding feels predictable, manageable, and safe, or whether it begins to carry tension and demand. Bottle aversion emerges when the balance tips and feeding no longer feels contained within your baby’s capacity.

Feeding is a complex physical task for your baby

Bottle feeding is often described as straightforward, yet for your baby it requires constant coordination. Sucking, swallowing, and breathing must be timed precisely while posture is maintained and sensory input is processed. When these systems integrate smoothly, feeding unfolds with rhythm. When integration requires effort, feeding begins to draw on reserves.

Your baby adapts to that effort long before aversion appears. Early signs often include feeds that start well and deteriorate, frequent pauses, increasing tension through the body, or a need to disengage and re-engage repeatedly. These responses allow feeding to continue, yet they also increase vigilance. Feeding becomes something your baby manages rather than something that simply happens.

Over time, their nervous system recognises this demand. Bottle aversion reflects the point at which your baby’s system decides that avoidance offers more regulation than endurance.

Why some babies appear to cope before aversion appears

Many parents describe their baby as feeding well in the early weeks. Volumes are taken, growth progresses, and reassurance is offered. What is often missed is the internal organisation required to sustain those feeds. Some babies feed through coordination challenges, discomfort, or sensory overload by compensating. They adapt quietly.

As your baby matures, awareness increases and their sucking reflex diminishes. Control increases. The strategies that once allowed feeding to continue begin to feel restrictive. Bottle aversion often appears at this developmental juncture. It is not regression. It is your baby communicating that the way feeding has been organised no longer fits their capacity.

Why hunger does not resolve bottle aversion

Bottle aversion is rooted in regulation rather than appetite. Feeding lives in the nervous system as much as the digestive system. When feeding feels too demanding, hunger increases arousal rather than settling it. Also, when stress hormones kick in they actually supress appetite to allow out body to prioritise safety; I'm sure you've heard of fight, flight or freeze mode.

This is why strategies that rely on spacing feeds or waiting longer often intensify distress. Your baby’s system prioritises protection and predictability. Intake becomes secondary.

What bottle aversion is communicating

Bottle aversion communicates that feeding, as currently experienced, exceeds your baby’s comfortable capacity. It is not defiance. It is organisation. Your baby’s system is seeking a different balance between effort and safety.

Resolution comes from understanding what feeding feels like inside your baby’s body and reshaping the experience so that airway safety, coordination, predictability, and trust are restored. When feeding becomes manageable again, acceptance emerges without persuasion.

Moving toward resolution

Bottle aversion resolves when feeding is reorganised around your baby’s capacity rather than expectations. This involves careful attention to coordination, pacing, relational signals, and the emotional tone of feeding itself. When those elements align, feeding no longer requires defence.

Your baby shows you the way forward through their responses. The work lies in understanding those responses deeply enough to follow them.

A note from me

I am Laura Bottiglieri, a Paediatric Feeding Specialist and Speech and Language Therapist who works with families where feeding has become too hard to hold alone. Much of my work centres on babies experiencing bottle aversion and feeding distress, often after months of well intentioned advice that never quite explained what was happening inside the feed. My approach is rooted in understanding feeding as a coordinated, relational process rather than a problem to be managed. When feeding is reorganised around a baby’s capacity, resolution becomes possible.

If anything in this piece resonated with you, you may already be sensing that feeding needs more than surface level strategies. You are very welcome to explore my services hub to see how feeding care can be shaped around your baby, or to make an enquiry if you would like support in understanding what is happening and what the right next step might be.

Feeding does not need to stay this way when it is understood properly and you deserve so much more.

Laura x

References

Delaney, A. L., & Arvedson, J. C. (2008). Development of swallowing and feeding: Prenatal through first year of life. Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 14(2), 105–117.

Goday, P. S., Huh, S. Y., Silverman, A., et al. (2019). Pediatric feeding disorder: Consensus definition and conceptual framework. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 68(1), 124–129.

Kahng, S. W., Piazza, C. C., & Fisher, W. W. (2010). Interventions for pediatric feeding disorders. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 43(1), 163–170.(Referenced here for contrast with medical and relational models of feeding rather than behavioural framing.)

Lau, C. (2015). Development of suck and swallow mechanisms in infants. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 66(Suppl. 5), 7–14.

Rommel, N., De Meyer, A. M., Feenstra, L., & Veereman-Wauters, G. (2003). The complexity of feeding problems in infants and young children. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 37(1), 75–84.

Shaker, C. S. (2017). Cue-based feeding in the NICU: Using the infant’s communication as a guide. Neonatal Network, 36(2), 89–95.