Mental Breakdown!!!

[kittycase]

I think I am losing my mind and it's only been three days.  Our 10 month old has been going great on her schedule.  (something to keep in mind..she has acid reflux..is on meds that work great and has not had any change with that; she is also milk/soy intollerant and has been on hypoallergenic formula for the majority of her life...all is great with that as well)
Previous schedule:
7:30am wake up - has 8oz bottle
7:30 - 10:30 awake time (during which she has finger food snacks, oatmeal or pancakes around 9:00am)
10:30/10:45 - Down for a nap
12:30 - wake up has 8 oz bottle
12:30 - 2:30/3:00pm awake time (during which she has finger food snacks around 1:45pm)
2:30/3:00 - 4:00/4:30pm Down for a nap
4:30pm - Wake up and has 8 oz bottle
5:30pm - Dinner (finger foods and sometimes food from our plate or a baby food jar of fruit or vegies)
7:45pm - Get ready for bed and give last bottle...she drinks anywhere between 6-8 oz depending on how much she ate for dinner

Finger foods consist of the gerber fruit dehydrated fruit or corn bites, cheerios, kix cereal, gerber puffs (any flavor), gerber cookies or toast, bread/food in bites off our plates, tiny pieces of pancakes (w/no syrup or butter) and that's about it.

Lately...

She's been waking up at 5 or 6 am wanting a bottle
then going back to sleep until 7:30 or 8:00am
Not wanting a bottle when she wakes up at 8am (of course since she just had one at 6am)
fussy all morning
has oatmeal cereal (twice as much as she usually has...about 4oz formula to 6tablespoons of oatmeal)
fine for a half hour or so then starts fussing again
10:00am offer bottle...refuses...put down for nap (since she's been constant crying...figure that's the only other logical thing she'd need)
screams her head off...after a while we go in and offer her the bottle again...she takes 4oz...we lay her down for the nap...she cries herself to sleep after about 10 mins
11:30am wake up (has finger foods w/us for lunch...offer her babyfood...refuses)
1:30 starts getting fussy again
2:15 offer bottle...refuses...put down for nap...screams her head off...after a while we go in and offer the bottle again...refuses...screams her head off and falls asleep after about 10 mins
well this is the first day i'm monitoring the times and that's as far as we've gotten...but it pretty much repeats it's self through the evening...she will only take 4 oz of her bottle max

What is going on with my sweetie?  She started acting like she was more hungry so I tried to insert babyfood vs fingerfoods...and that's about the same time all this mess started happening.  This morning she woke up with a runny nose.  So maybe she's sick.  But usually when she's sick she's not like this.  She still eats and sleeps.  I am so confused and I just want to find the cause so I can get her back on a schedule.  Cause this one is not working for us and it's not working for her.  We don't know what she wants when she cries or squeeles at us. 

Oh as far as milestones go...she kind already went through them...she's been walking for about 2 solid months now (she's only 10 month...I know!!!)...no teeth coming in (she has 8 already). Oh and she normally puts herself to sleep (I just lay her down and she falls asleep w/out a peep...we used CIO for a week several months ago to achieve that (I know this site doesn't support that, but it was all that worked for her).

Any help to bring my sanity back would be greatly appreciated.

Update: it's now only 30mins after she fell asleep and she's back awake and crying...(hmmm well if she would have just taken her bottle she might have stayed asleep...ackkkk)

[kittycase]

Would this be an unreasonable goal to switch to? I'm noticing that in the feeding schedule for 10-12mo thread most babies are down to 3 bottles...and up on the food they eat...

7:30am Bottle
9:00am Breakfast (oatmeal)
10:15am Snack (fingerfoods)
10:45am -12:30pm Nap
12:30 Lunch (instead of bottle): Fruit and Vegies
2:00pm Bottle
3:00pm -4:30pm Nap
4:30 Dinner (instead of bottle): Fruit and Vegies (she HATES meat)
5:30pm Snack (tablefood bites off our plate when we eat dinner)
7:30/7:45pm Bottle and put down for the night

Does this sound about what it should be and if so how do I get her from what she's doing to this?

[nike]

I'd say she's ready to drop to 3 bottles a day.  Since your LO wakes at a decent hour in the morning, maybe you could try going straight into breakfast now and change the order of bottles.  My DS2 is 14 months old (12.5 corrected) but has been on this routine for a while now:

7 a.m.: wake
7.30 a.m.: b'fast
8.30 a.m.: bottle
9 a.m.: nap #1
10.30-11 a.m.: wake
11.30 a.m.: morning tea
12.30 p.m.: lunch
1.30 p.m.: bottle
2 p.m.: nap #2
3.30 - 4 p.m.: wake
4.30 p.m.: arvo tea (most times he's not interested in this)
5.15-5.30: dinner
6.15: bath, quiet play with brother, bedtime stories
6.45-7 p.m.: bottle
7.15 p.m.: bed

We were kind of all over the place until our amazing OT suggested this routine for us.  (We see her primarily for issues relating to developmental delay but she specialises in infant feeding.)  It's difficult when the early waking puts your feeding routine out but her advice was to get up and give breakfast any time after 6 a.m. then alter the sleep routine accordingly or, if he was cooperative, stretch DS out till first nap at 9 a.m.  With this routine we're able to fit in morning and afternoon tea (although as I posted, he's often not interested in this snack) and a good breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Now if he wakes overnight (due to teething/illness/whatever) I only offer a sippy of water.  He is easily settled back to sleep, though, so I know I'm lucky.

FWIW, your sample routine looks great.  If she's not keen on dinner that early or if she's a fussy eater (like mine) you could switch dinner for a snack and have her eat with the family but don't leave it too late or else she might be too tired to eat a good meal.  I find DS likes to eat dinner early, even though he refuses afternoon tea most times.  We now eat early to accomodate that as we find he eats more when we all sit down together.  I also have a toddler who is nearly 3 and a bit fussy at times, so the 5.30 p.m. dinnertime seems to work well all round (except for Mum and Dad who are looking for a snack at 8 p.m.!!)

HTH!

[Freya'sMum]

Your previous routine looked really good in terms of structure, and it kinda doesn't make sense to me that dd's sudden issues would be about something being wrong with it, so I'm not sure why you think that reducing no. of bottles/milk intake would help her?

My los always go off their food/milk if they are poorly, it's how I know they are really unwell, not just a bit unwell, so if you think that dd might be developing an illness, I'd just let it all go until she's over it, and then try to reinstate your previous routine - I'm always a bit wary of dropping bottles, not only because milk remains the primary source of nutrition until 12 month (a minimum of 20oz per day), but also because 4 bottles per day provides a really good structure:

morning milk
solid breakfast
mid-morning milk
solid lunch
mid-afternoon milk
solid tea
bedtime milk

if you do want to reduce milk intake, I'd drop oz per feed, rather than whole feeds;

I also wonder whether she might just be having a growth spurt? My dd1 is suddenly eating masses again after a few months of disinterest in food, so I put it down to her sudden rapid height increase giving her a bigger appetite!

Sorry it's difficult at present, I will make my mod colleagues aware of this post to see if anyone has any other suggestions.

Ax

[*Mona*]

hi there

I agree with Alison. your routine looked really good and I don't think it's routine issues but rather milestones or growth spurt.
but if you want to drop a bottle, I think that's ok too as many babies at 10 months are, like you say, on 3  78oz bottles a day plus more solids.
the only problem I see with the 'new' routine would be this 2am bottle- I'd do the opposite: 12:30 bottle, 2pm solids. if she has too much solids at 12:30 she won't be hungry for her milk and just as Alison says, milk is the primary source of nutrition for babies under 1 year so you need to remember her bottle are really important, more important than solids.

m

[kittycase]

Thanks for all of your imputs. I do believe that all of this is from her cold. It really hit it's peak yesterday. She was up for hours in the middle of the night. I think she had a sore throat, because she would cry every time she yawned. I know that sure hurts when I have a sore throat. Last night she was better.  She slept throught the night and did the 6am wake up...back to sleep until 8am.  She didn't nap well at all today so an early bedtime is in order.  Both yesterday and today I gave her 3 bottles.  And she still didn't drink all of them.  But I do know that they lose appitite when sick. So when the illness passes I'll see if she's willing to take the 4 bottles.  She was doing Sooo well on that routine.  If she refuses then I guess 3 bottles it is.  But I do agree that it is so important to have her bottle be her priority.  That's why I freak out when she's sick and I see 5 oz left over from her 8 oz bottle. She has never taken to jar baby food.  Seems as though she wants to skip it and go directly to the solids.  Thanks again for all your imputs.