Nearly 8 months old - holding out for solids in lieu of milk?

[veryrebs]

My DD has gradually decreased the amount of milk she drinks daily over the past month. Besides the fact that she is now not drinking the recommended amount for her age/weight, she's now waking at night more often and drinking more from those night bottles. The NW's are very unpredictable. One night it will be like the old days where we don't hear a peep from her until 6am, and I notice on those occasions, she's eaten plenty during the previous day. On other nights, she'll wake only 2-3 hours after we put her down and she's clearly starving - usually after a day where she doesn't make it over the 20oz hump.

I realize that teething is definitely coming into play here if it hurts her to suck, but I need some advice on how to get more milk into her during the day. I've already switched to the fast flow nipple which has helped, but not enough. She has severe reflux, but it is pretty well controlled on medicine (Prevacid). I noticed that even if she doesn't drink a lot from her bottle, an hour later she is ravenously hungry for her solids meal. It is almost as if she is holding out for the solids.

Obviously I am more concerned with her daily nutrition than the NW's. She used to drink 5-7 oz. at each feeding.

Today:

E 5:00am - 5.5 oz. (her normal overnight feeding as she has never had a DF)
S until 7:10am
A had her Prevacid @ 7:15am
E 7:45am - 2 oz. (stopped eating much here after we started solids)
A 8:55am - 5 tbsp. prunes/mixed grain cereal
S morning nap - short
E 11:00am - 2oz. (this decrease happened this week)
A 12:00pm - 4 tbsp. chicken/yams/pears
E 2:00pm - 4.5 oz. (we just moved this bottle to before her nap as she had already started drinking less of her bedtime bottle - they were too close together)
S afternoon nap long
A 4:00pm - 6 tbsp. squash/apples/oatmeal...gets her Prevacid 30 min before bedtime bottle
E 6:30pm - 4.5 oz. (normally at 7pm but early b/c of short morning nap - she was cranky!)
S 7:00pm
E 9:30pm - 3 oz. (screaming for food b/c she had only had about 19 oz. today)


Eliminate the bottle after the morning nap? Reduce her solids? Refuse to feed overnight? I thought at her age, and especially b/c of her reflux, that 1 NF (early morning 5am/6am) was okay. I don't want to slide backwards b/c she's holding out for solids. Perplexing. Help please!

[Lolly]

Hey there!

You could try to drop to 3 bottles to see if that increases her milk intake. We went to 3 bottles around 7 months with my refluxer because of poor milk intake. So we did

Wake - bottle
Solids 1 hour later
Nap
Lunch solids
Bottle - around 2/2.30
Nap
Tea
Bath,bottle and bed.

My DD didn't have a feed around 5am so had a bottle on waking, we eliminated nightfeeds around 8.5 months by just offering water and re-settling. After a few nights she just stopped waking for a feed. That may be worth a try, you may be able to push her waking a bit later so she starts the day with a decent bottle. She is having quite a lot of solids for her age so if you are concerned you could cut back the amount she has a bit to see if that increases her milk intake. Don't forget also that milk in her food counts towards her daily intake so the other option is to increase the amount of dairy in her foods. You can give things like yoghurt, cheese sauces etc (we went with UK recs and introduced youghurt etc from 6 months).

What do you think?

Laura

[veryrebs]

Dropping the bottles sounds like a good plan. I'm just worried that she'll drink even less without the extra opportunities at milk. Guess I won't know without trying though! Should the first step be dropping the bottle after her first nap? That would be the least shocking to her I'm sure. Then tackle the night feeding issue?

Her doctor has yet to okay dairy of any kind, though she has her 8 month check-up next week and I assume that is the next step in feeding. She does get an extra 2 oz. of formula in her solids daily (4 tbsp. cereal). I should mention that yesterday was unusual, she normally only has 4 tbsp. per meal, but her father was trying to get more formula in her anyway he could. I'll go back to limiting her meals to 4 tbsp. unless she's screaming at me for more.

When I get to the night feeding issue, could I try limiting the size of the bottle instead of the water? Gradually decrease the amount of formula? Her doctor doesn't want us to give her any water, and truthfully, she mostly spits it back up when I give it to her (though she likes it).

Thanks for your help.

[Lolly]

The bottle after the first nap is probably the best one. If it doesn't help you can always go back to offering more bottles again.

It's really amazing how different countries vary in advice! Where are you? In the UK from 6 months apart from honey, whole nuts, adding salt and sugar it's ok to give just about anything. Just out of interest, why doesn't your Dr want to give her water? Here we are advised that bottle fed babies may need some extra water because they don't get milk that changes with their needs like BF babies. They say it's fine to give an oz or 2 cooled boiled water in a day if they are a bit constipated or unsettled and then after 6 months they can have tap water. We have offered both my two water with their meals from 6 months - to get them used to it as much as anything!

With the nightfeeds limiting the bottles is probably the way to go. Reduce it by an oz or so for a few nights then reduce it again so you do it gradually. She should make it up at her next bottle then.

Let us know how you get on!

Laura

[veryrebs]

Well, I didn't give her a bottle after her first nap, and I still struggled to get her to drink 4 oz. at the 2pm feed. All together today, she's only had 16 oz! This is very frustrating as we never had trouble getting her to drink her bottles until this past month, even with her reflux.

I'm in the NYC metro area. It seems every doctor has a different way of doing things, doesn't it? Our doctor advised that DD doesn't need additional liquids as her formula is perfectly balanced to provide all her nutrition and hydration. He also said she could fill up on it and it could tax her kidneys, depending on the amount. Since I have common sense, I did some research and it seems 2-4 oz. of water per day really wouldn't affect her kidneys unless they already had underlying problems. So I used water to teach her how to use a sippy cup as it is easier to clean up lol! She loved it but wound up spitting a lot of it back up, I'm not sure if it was b/c of the water itself or how much air she gulped learning to use the sippy cup. Either way, right now I can't give her any b/c she isn't even drinking enough formula, but I would give her a little with meals if I could. Doctors are great, but moms ultimately need to make their own decisions about these things.

Even though she drank so little today, I'm going to try to tackle the night feed as well. I noticed she'd been drinking about 5 oz. at that feeding, so I made the overnight bottle only 4 oz. We'll see what happens. The doctor doesn't seem worried about how little she's drinking, but he's not the one doing the increased overnight feedings!

[veryrebs]

Thankfully reducing the bottles is working.

Yesterday and today she didn't have a night feeding (figures, since I was finally ready to tackle it ). She had 3 bottles yesterday at 7:00am, 2:00pm and 7:00pm and she drank 6 oz each time. 18 oz is still low but actually better than she had been doing. She's done the same so far today, but she is not happy about having her solids limited lol. Ah well, can't win 'em all.

Thanks Laura!

[Lolly]

No problem

You may find in a few days you can increase those bottles a bit. As you say 18oz is a bit low, but as it's better than she was doing before then it's an improvement!

Let us know how she gets on!

Laura

[booney1975]

more solids more solids more solids......that would be my answer.

You say she is almost 8 months.....at 8 months my twins were on 3 solids meals plus 3 day time bottles and one dream feed. I know the baby whisperer weaning plan because I started on it but found it soooooo slow going. At 8 months my twins were eating as follows:

7:30am - porriage made with cows milk
9:00 - 6oz bottle of formula
11:30am - lunch (protein based such as lentils with veg or chicken with veg all pureed up)
2:30pm - 4oz bottle
4:45pm - dinner such as mashed potato with broccoli or a pasta dish (butternut squash, tomotoes and cheese with pasta)
6:30pm - 6oz bottle
10:30pm - dream feed.

Fill her up on solids. The milk recommendation doesn't actually mean it has to be drunk; it can be in the form of yoghurt, fromage frais, cheese and other calcium rich ingredients such as spinach (I have a delisious recipe for a spinach puree if you are interested)

[Lolly]

Thank you for sharing! The OP isn't including any dairy in food yet on her Peds recs so she needs to get her calcium from the milk she is drinking which is why it has been suggested to cut back on solids a bit to increase her milk to the recommended levels.

Laura

[veryrebs]

DD had her 8 month check-up today, and we can officially start solid dairy. We have to be careful b/c she has been on Alimentum for suspected MPI, so we'll see what happens with this.

The good news is that she has increased her milk again - she's been around 20-22 oz. per day. She only seems to have an overnight bottle (3-4 oz.) if her dad is home; it is like she knows he is the softie who won't force the issue. I'm pushing him, but he hates when she cries so he caves. She is very unhappy that her solids are limited, and the doctor recommended letting her eat as much as she wants. He did say that she has to stay above 16 oz. of formula per day; I guess that is the minimum here?

Anyway, I'm upping her solids 1 tbsp. per meal tomorrow. We shall see if she keeps up her milk intake!