When to drop a bottle?

[bubbabear1]

Hi there,

DD has jus turned 1 and is still on 3 bottles a day.  She has never been a great eater and is now guzzling all 3 bottles of 8 oz.  We are slowly adding more n more cows milk and it's going well.  Doing 4oz n 4 oz at the moment and will be increasing the cows milk by 1 oz again shortly.  She does not eat a huge amount of solids and tends to 'squirrel' her food in her mouth for a long time.  Should I be reducing the amount of ounces that I am giving her?  I am just worried that as she doesnt eat a lot of soilds that she will wake in the night with hunger and I will have to give her a bottle.  Any ideas??

TIA,

Siobhan
xx

[Lolly]

The trouble is she is probably not doing so well with the solids because of the amount of lovely filling milk she is drinking! They only need 12/14oz of dairy from a year to give them the calcium they need and that doesn't need to be liquid milk. By 1 year, most seem to be on morning and night bottles so I would think the afternoon one would be a good one to drop/ replace with a snack first.

Would she be able to wait for breakfast first when she wakes and have milk as a drink with breakfast or just after? She should be hungry after a night so it may be a way to encourage better eating in the morning.

Laura

[bubbabear1]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for the reply.  She has porridge n fruit in the morning with milk in a sippy cup but has only just started to drink more than 1 mouthful of this.  She eats well at breakfast time and has a snack soon after, then her 8oz bottle before her 1st nap.  She sleeps 50 mins (at the moment - starting to reduce this and increase 'A' before but it's a slow process)  She has her lunch solids about 1 hour 'ish' after she wakes up, if she doesn't eat a lot then a snack of yoghurt/cracker then another 8oz bottle before her 2nd nap.  She sleeps 1.5 hour and again solids about 1 hour after wakeup (surely she is hungry by this time!!). No snack normally as a shorter 'A' before bed and will get sick if consumes too much in a short space of time due to reflux.  Should I just drop the 2nd bottle cold turkey or gradually reduce the amount over a few days.  She is an Angel baby and does tend to take a few days to get used to things.
Thanks for all your help.

Siobhan
xx

[Lolly]

I would probably reduce it over a few days and up the solids a bit as you do. As she has it before her nap would she see it as part of the wind down/ nap routine or will she go down ok without it? You may need to adjust her nap routine a bit if she has one and the bottle is part of it!

Laura

[bubbabear1]

Hi there,

She used to have 1st bottle on wakeup and 2nd after 2nd nap so she should go down for her nap without it.  Will give it a try tomorrow with a 5oz bottle and see how she gets on.

Thanks again,

Siobhan
xx