morning rage

[cathbilson]

Hi all,
My LO is not quite 5 months now and has never been a real big eater. His best feeds are always in the afternoon and evening, but lately the mornings have got silly.
He goes to bed at 7 pm, has a small df (4 oz) at 11, and gets up at 6. This morning breakfast was 1oz. 
If I try to push him to eat he gets rage. His first decent feed is at 10 when he will usually take 4 or 5 oz. I just can't understand how he can be not hungry in the morning after a night's sleep. 
Should I drop the df? I have reduced it to 4 oz from 6, but should I do more/ earlier? The simple fact is it doesn't seem to make any difference to his morning appetite and without the df  I'd struggle to get 25 oz down him (he's 15 lb).
Anyone else run into this problem? Would appreciate advice! 

[Zoey]

Have you tried a larger nipple?  Sometimes Owen would get mad at the bottle cause he hated to 'work' so hard for his food LOL.  We moved to a bigger nipple and things got better.

Zoe

[cathbilson]

Hi Zoe, thanks for responding..
to be honest I really doubt it's the nipple size at issue. We're on the largest Avent size anyway and when he puts his mind to it he can down 6 oz in about a minute. In addition, when I say he takes 1 oz - sometimes he sees the bottle coming, seams his lips together and glares at me. I wiggle the nipple into his mouth somehow, he gets milk on his lips - and the rage starts. The morning he hadn't had so much as a sip before he was yelling.
Stacy: yeah, he's just not hungry. And if I push, he lets me know about it in no uncertain terms. Sometimes if I try again about half an hour later he'll very grudgingly take an oz, but no more than that. How old was your Kaleb when this one started? We have dropped dream feed a few times but DS started waking hungry at 3, so I started doing it again.

[cathbilson]

Um, no, not really! I will try doing it gradually. As I said last two nights we dropped from 6 oz to 4, (actually last night only took 3 1/2, was very sleepy) but it didn't seem to make any difference to breakfast time.
Will try moving it earlier tonight, to 10.30.

[* Paula *]

We also found that our DS did not want to eat first thing in the morning.  We usually had to wait 1/2 hour to 45 minutes of being awake before he would take a bottle.

He always wanted to play for a while before he ate.

HTH

Paula x

[LŠuren]

Calum also waits, regardless of his wake up time he gets his bottle at 0730.

[yaya]

yes i agree, some babies an adults too for that matter) just dont liek to eat s soon as they have woken up, have u tried waiting a while?

[cathbilson]

Mm. You see, I'm not sure the waiting thing is going to help, because he's pretty much awake on and off from 4.30 anyway (we're battling this - today slightly better, woke at 5.05).
Thanks for the idea, though. haven't fed him yet, will see how it goes. Managed to get 4 oz down him at breakfast yesterday and about 26 oz all up, an excellent day for him!

[jumblebox]

We did what Stacy suggested, moving the DF earlier & cutting back. Our bedtime bottle was around 7pm, and once we reached 9/9:15pm DF, we were able to drop it. And now he usually takes a full bottle (or close to) every morning.

I wanted to add... when he first started taking more at his 1st feed, I noticed he was spitting up more frequently. I guess he just wasn't used to eating in the a.m.? But he seems to have adjusted. Also, no matter what time he wakes (sometimes he tosses & turns from 4:30am, on; sometimes he wakes around 5am & plays in his crib until 6-6:30am) we always feed him at 7am. If we try even 15 mins sooner, he takes considerably less.

Good luck!

[cathbilson]

OK.
Well, the dream feed is back to 10 pm and he's now only geting 3 oz. So far no difference in the mornings. In fact the whole of today he's eaten rubbish ( 2 oz first thing, 5 oz at 10, 2 oz again now at 2). I'm hoping he'll at least do well on his bedtime bottle.
Tomorrow, I'm going to offer the bottle when he gets up at 6, and if he cuts up stroppy, I'll take him for our 40 minute walk and offer it again when we get back.
Any ideas as to why some of them don't like to eat when they first get up?

[yaya]

no idea! I'm a BIG eater at breakfast but I know plenty of people whose tummys just arent ready as soon as they wake up!