Refusing all bottles except nightime!!

[janelle]

Grrrrrrrr!!!  We are in the midst of sleep training and trying to solve a miriad of problems at the moment.  One of these is to try and rid us of the 2 night wakings where ds demands bottles.  My problem is I can't get him to take any bottles during the day.  He will take aroud 200mls before bed, but barely 100mls the rest of the day, but he will take 2 full bottles during the night which we are trying to wean. 

He is 10 months old and loooooves his solids.  He eats 3 full meals a day and any snacks offered plus any scraps he happens to find on the floor during the day

We have managed to move one of the night bottles to 6:30am so that is his 1st feed of the day and then he has his last bottle at 6:30pm and one around 2am.  Should I be worried about trying to get more in him if he is realy resisting?  If we drop that night feed he will only be getting 350-400mls a day.  Is that o.k.

He has a reasonable amount of dairy now with custards and yoghurts and cheese and i am TRYING to get im to take water or juice out of a sippy to get some fluids in him during the day. 

Anyone, got any advice??

[magda1461]

sounds very similiar to my DD, she only eats around 100ml each bottle x3 a day and will have 200ml at bedtime, then i aslo give her a bottle at 4am she will drink around 120ml of it plus solids 3 times a day. your LO is drinking less cos theyre eating solids more! which is normal, and is what we are all working our way up to, he may just be a little quicker. i have started to hold off on the morning bottle as DD wakes around 6.30 so i give her her cereal and fruit first at 7.30am, then an hour later i give her a bottle. this worked for us then she'll  have a bottle at 12.30, 4.30, and last one around 7.30pm. you see she is full from eating at night so isnt hungry for her bottle first thing! its worked for us and the way i see it if they're hungry they'll scream for food! and she's a real chubby one my LO! 

[* Paula *]

Janelle,

Have you had a look at this link under our FAQ's section?

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=68004.0

[janelle]

O.K.  Last night we managed to get him to sleep through without any bottles using PUPD   I thought this would guarantee he take a bottle this morning.  He woke at 7:30am but took 2 sips and then wanted up and out.  I have been trying for half an hour to get himt o take something and he is totaly not interested   He doesn't seem in the lightest bit interested or hungry.  The rate we are gonig if we get rid of the night feeds he will only be having the 1 bottle before bed.

Paula, I read the link, thanks but I am still confused as to why he is doing this and what to do...sigh....

[* Paula *]

Do you think he could be teething?

My DS went through a bottle strike when he was teething really badly, and went 5 days without a bottle - he just refused point blank to take them.  We reverted to giving him dreamfeeds at night just to make sure he had some milk in his system.

Have you tried rubbing teething gel on his gums a few minutes before a feed?  This may help to ease the pain.

[janelle]

I don't know..he seems to be constantly teething at the moment but has been really bad with fluid intake for a loooong time. Yesterday the only bottle we got in him was th eone before bed and then one at 5:30 this morning.  SO far today he is refusing all      I am only worried as it is causing him to become constipated as he won't take a sippy yet either

[* Paula *]

What size teat are you using?  Have you tried changing to the next size up teat?

I know that it does seem like they are teething forever, My DS is still teething at 18 months.

If you are finding that he is refusing most liquids, we found that if we sat him on our knee and tried a normal cup, I know that it is very messy, but at least you could tip a bit into his mouth and see if he will take it that way.

You could also try putting more milk in his cereal to try and up his intake.

When our DS was not taking much liquid we tried ice lollies and he loved those, that way he was still getting liquid into his system.

Please keep us posted on how you get on.

[janelle]

We have made our own holes in the fastest teats we have and that helped a tiny bit   Yesterday he ahd the 5:30 am bottle......and that was it....he wouldn't even take the bed one so we dreamfed him at 10:30pm and hes is still asleep now at 7:30am!!!   I am pretty sure he is teething now though as he was soooo grotty yesterday so hopefully will try some meds and see how it goes.  Wish me luck!

[* Paula *]

Hugs,

Please keep us posted on how you get on.

[janelle]

Well, we are having a little success.  But, he will only take the bottles when lying down in his cot....makes for a good prop doesn't it   so I am trying to slowly move this to laying down on the cfloor of his room and then maybe the couch so he doesn't keep relating it to sleeping.  So we are pretty much down to 2 full bottles a day with the occassional other one spread throughout the day!

[* Paula *]

Sounds like progress.

If he is taking 2 full bottles during the day at 10months, I would not worry too much.  Our DS was only on 2 bottles at that age, and we made the rest up with milk in his cereal, yogurts, cream cheese on toast etc.

Our DS also went through phase where he would only drink a bottle while he was laying on the couch - This phase lasted from about 4 months old, right up until he turned 1, then he decided he wanted to be in mummies arms again.  They always keep us guessing.   

[Luke-n-Me]

I'm a little late on this, but thought I might add that if your lo is 10 mos. and doesn't want a bottle, take advantage of this and just get rid of it.  Don't sweat it at this point.  Try straw cups.  You may think I'm crazy if you haven't already tried it, but most little ones can do straws at this age.  My kids did it at 5 and 6 mos.  I work with lo's with feeding disorders regularly and when I hear info like this I just say, move on.  He's certainly old enough at this point.  Any suspicions that he's having swallowing problems?  The ability to coordinate sucking/breathing/swallowing for bottles is very complex.  Straw give you much more control.  If you don't have luck with straws right away, just plug one end of the straw and give him larger and larger amounts as you drop then into his mouth and let him put his lips around that end and he should eventually get the hang of it.  I don't really recommend sippy cups, they really mimic drinking from a bottle. 

HOpe this helps.  I just happened to run across this message and thought I would reply, I very rarely check the boards at all anymore!!

Good luck and if you need more help, please ask!

[janelle]

Thanks Nancy

We have actually just started using a straw cup to try and get him to drink water during the day as he wasn't too keen on the sippy.  Might give it a go for the milk too!

[Luke-n-Me]

Great!  Hope it goes well for you!