Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate selectively and simultaneously establishing multiple bearers in wireless communication networks. A core network entity in a wireless network can transmit a bearer establishment request to an access point comprising a list of bearers to establish with a related mobile device. The bearer establishment request comprising list of bearers includes separate non-access stratum (NAS) messages corresponding to each bearer in the list. The separate NAS messages can be linked to each bearer entry in the list. The access point can receive the list and attempt to initialize one or more radio bearers in the list. Since the NAS messages individually correspond to a given bearer, the access point can forward NAS messages to the mobile device only for bearers that are successfully initialized allowing selective establishment thereof. In addition, the access point can provide initialization status for the individual bearers to the core network.