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EAT => Bottle Feeding => Topic started by: laanantha on April 16, 2014, 19:42:51 pm

Title: 7 month old refusing bedtime bottle
Post by: laanantha on April 16, 2014, 19:42:51 pm
Hi, I was wondering if anyone can help me.

My baby is 7 months old and is on three meals of solids a day.  Over the last two weeks he has been refusing to drink his bedtime bottle and cries hysterically.  Often he cries and refuses it before he has even drunk any of it.  When we rock him for a few minutes he pretty much falls asleep and then he will drink up to 200mls asleep.

A few weeks ago I was trying to decrease his dream feed because he was drinking less during the day and we managed to decrease it from 210mls to 150mls but then when we did 120mls he started waking up between 5am and 6.20am (he usually sleeps through to 7am) so I increased it again.  We have been doing 150mls until last night when I decreased it again to 120mls to see if that helps but he woke up at 5.15am. I managed to get him back to sleep quite quickly and he slept till 7am without being fed.

He is not drinking much at his 4pm bottle and I am not sure whether he really wants that one but I am keen to drop the dream feed first before any other bottles.

I can't work out if he is not hungry or too tired to drink so I have tried moving his dinner earlier - today it was at 4.45pm, and also giving him his bottle 15-30 mins before bed in case he is too tired. Neither have seemed to help much.  He is a baby that does get quite tired and tends to moan for about half an hour before he naps, but if he sleeps before that we get a 45 minute nap.

This was our EASY today

7am - wake
7am - bottle - 200mls (but had to be persuaded after stopping at 130mls)
8.45am - breakfast - 1 oz melon, one small fromage frais
10-11.30am - nap
11.30am - bottle - 130mls
12.45pm - lunch - 3 oz veggies, 2 parsnips as finger food but didn't really eat much of them!
2.30-4pm - nap
4pm - bottle - 70mls
4.45pm - 2 oz lentils, small amount of parsnips
5.45pm - bath
6.15 - tried to give him bottle but drank 20mls then cried until I rocked him and was nearly asleep at 6.40pm and drank 200mls total

We will dream feed 120mls at 10.15pm

Any ideas on what is best to do with his bottles and meals?  i was wondering whether to combine the dream feed and bedtime bottle to one bottle at say 9pm and then gradually bring it forward, and if he is drinking more but not really at 4pm then cut that bottle and give him his dinner at 4pm instead.

Thanks!
Title: Re: 7 month old refusing bedtime bottle
Post by: Erin M on April 19, 2014, 02:57:20 am
Hi there!
Just bumping this up so someone will be along to answer.
Title: Re: 7 month old refusing bedtime bottle
Post by: Lolly on April 19, 2014, 18:58:53 pm
What about cutting out the tea time solids and see if that makes a difference? A lot of babies seem to go through phases with reducing milk when solids come into play, they don't need 3 meals at this age and there are recs around not to do 3 meals until after 8 months.

It could well be that he is really tired by the time you offer the bottle so if you don't do solids at tea time for a while can you bring the bath a bit earlier? If he has a bottle at 4pm, then solids his bed time bottle is quite close to it so he may not really be hungry too.

What do you think?

Laura
Title: Re: 7 month old refusing bedtime bottle
Post by: annamomof3 on May 11, 2014, 02:00:40 am
Hello my seven-month-old twins are boy girl and boy oh boy are girls different! For starters my boy was always on the larger side of my girl was always on the smaller side however my boy twin eats roughly 28 ounces of formula per day broken up over four bottles and eats breakfast fruit and dinner veggies he now sleeps through the night with no dream feed however my girl roughly drinks  20 to 25 ounces of formula and sometimes struggles to get 22 ounces.  She also has been waking every night at 3 AM since she's born and will not go back down unless she has a few sips of something. I've tried everything of weaning her off of solids decreasing the amounts the times changing the schedule up nothings work anybody have any advice for me?? I Pediatrician tells me her ounce intake is perfectly normal.
Title: Re: 7 month old refusing bedtime bottle
Post by: Kellyjs on May 11, 2014, 19:01:11 pm
Just read this and had to reply as we had this around 7-8mo!!

For us, it was time to get rid of the DF. Especially when she wasn't taking much on wu either!

I tried moving the DF earlier but that just made the refusal of the BT bottle worse. So I cut back massively on the solids at tea time (a couple of spoonfuls if that), also moved it earlier to 4pm (DD had a 7pm BT) and had to remove the DF cold turkey in the end. Did result in a few EW but unsure if that was hunger or routine related as we were having issues there too.

Once I cut back the solids and moved it earlier she took 3 extra oz at BT, then when the DF went, another 3oz extra!!

Hth