This paper investigates what substitutes for maternal milk existed for Roman infants whose mothers were not able or not willing to breastfeed. It examines the potential reasons why a mother could or would not breastfeed or why an infant could not suckle, and the various attested or hypothetical alternatives to maternal milk about which literary and archaeological sources as well as anthropological, sociological and practical considerations inform us, from wet nurses to animal milk, from a bottle or from the udder, to allomaternal nursing.