Help! 7 month old refusing fluid!

[alison79]

My 7 month old who is on a good EASY 4 hour schedule has started to refuse her bottles of formula or only takes 1 oz at a time.  Some days I only get 5-7 ozs of formula into her all day.  She will take little sips of water, less than 1 oz for a day.  We have tried different bottles and different sippy cups.  She east 1oz cereal and 1 oz fruit for breakfast.  1 oz veggie and 1oz fruit for lunch and same for dinner.  I try to give 4 bottles daily!  This is the fourth day and I am lost for ideas.  Please help.  Her bowel movements are difficult for her to pass lately (due to lack of fluid) and much firmer than normal.  She doesn't appear to be ill in any way.  HELP!

[Freya'sMum]

Hello!

My first thought would be for you to cut right back on the amount of solid food your lo is eating - until at least 9-10 months, babies should be consuming their pre-solids quantity of babymilk plus some solid food, this is because the solid food has relatively little nutritional value compared to the milk, so you want more milk, less solids.

Curious, interested babies like solid food, and can seem to eat loads of it, but often this makes the milk intake drop significantly because they feel full up on the solid foods so don't have room for the milk, when really the milk is the food they should still be Eating, with the solid foods just offered as an Activity.

Until a year, babies need to have at least 20oz babymilk per day, and at 7 months it really ought to be higher still, so I would significantly reduce or stop the solid food altogether (dd doesn't actually need them nutritionally so stopping won't harm her) so that she's hungry for her milk again - once she's taking a good volume, I would then gradually reintroduce some solid foods, monitoring carefully that her milk intake doesn't drop again

You don't say when you started to introduce solid foods to dd, but if you consider that she will be eating food for the next 80 years or so, 7 months is still pretty early on in the food exploration journey, and there really is no rush, she's got years in which to try all the wonderous things available, milk is the amazing superfood she needs right now

HTH?

Ax

[alison79]

thanks!  i think i am going to take her off of solids and start from scratch.  originally the doctor had me start cereal at 5 months  because she was little and was only drinking about 18ozs daily.  she has been introduced to veggies and fruits now as well and really could care less if i fed her at all!  it's very frustrating!  i'll try just offering formula and see how it goes!

[lovedtodeath]

I love this link solid food I am just a broken record with it! Helps me a lot. And I definitely agree with Allison too

[lovedtodeath]

How's it going?