New Challenge - Refusing Bottle

Around his 3rd week, Noah started crying and refusing food (both bottle and breast). He would even cry in the middle of his sleep. We were perplexed.  Then we were told by nurse and doctor that it might be gas. So we burped him more, and it seemed to have worked.

Slowly, we mastered the art of burping and learned to co-op with his crying in the middle of a feeding or from the middle of his sleep. By 6th week, we were cruising. Things are looking up.

Then Noah thought of something new to keep us on our toes.  He suddenly started to refuse bottle a couple of weeks agp. Not formula itself, just the form of delivery of formula - the bottle.  Because we could sneak the bottle feeding in while he was drowsy or asleep. So we know the formula itself, the taste or whatever, was not the reason for his refusal.

He just decided that he didn't like bottle.  Merely putting the rubber nipple to his lips would cause him to cry bloody murder.  The only time he would drink from a bottle were when he was super super hungry AND when he was drowsy. Missing either element won't do.

Up until now we have always said that Noah is a reasonable baby.  But this time he went too far. we started to let him cry out when he threw another fit at the bottle.  We put him on the swing and turn on the mobile. The funny thing is that in between crying he would angrily "talk" to his own reflection, as if doing a self-therapy and eventually he would calm himself down. Then we would pick him up again and try to rock him to sleep in our arms (maybe sneak in the bottle then).

Feeding suddenly becomes difficult, especially now I'm preparing to go back to work. He would HAVE TO take the bottle even for breast milk during the day when i'm at work.

Hopefully this is just a phase that he would outgrow soon. :(

On the positive side, sometimes he refuses the bottle with a smile.  It was rather cute, and one couldn't get mad at him when he does that.

update 9/22/2010:
Did a little more research on this. Seemed like a common problem, babies would take bottle when they were a few weeks old because they were "feeding reflexively" then. When they reach 2 month, they became self-aware, and starts to make decisions. One of such decision is the preference of breast over bottle.  And looks like we are trying all the tips given here, all we need is patience and time. By the time i'm out of the house and he is hungry, he will accept bottle eventually. Sure hope so. It is really frustrating.
http://www.pamf.org/children/newborns/feeding/refusal.html