dropping bottles

[mmom]

C will be 7 months on the 28th.  We are getting a lot of fussing at feedings.  He is a big boy (21 pounds) and has been on solids since 5 months.  He is very interested in them, yet I know liquid should be his main source of nutrition for now.  That being said, I feel like he should be dropping a bottle.  Is it too early?  If it is not, which one do I drop?  I read the FAQs section and it looks like the bottle is dropped later and it is the morning bottle.  I just can't wrap my head around how it would go.  Right now he is taking 2 naps per day.

Yesterday looked like this:
wake: 6
E 6:20, 8 ounces
solids 7:30
S 9-10:30
E 10:45, 8 ounces
solids 12:30

S 1:20 - 3:06
E 3:15, 8 ounces
solids 5
E 5:45 6 ounces
Bed 6:27

I know his amounts are high.  Both the babysitter and DH mentioned that he takes a while to drink some of the mid day bottles and I wonder if we should be dropping one.  What do you think?

[Lolly]

How long does he take to drink the mid-day bottles? Have you tried a faster flow teat? To be honest with the amount of milk he is taking I wouldn't drop any yet. The cue to drop is usually because they are refusing one or both day time bottles so the drop is to combine 2 poor bottles into 1 good milk feed. If you drop a bottle you may find he starts waking hungry at night, the 8oz of nutritious milk would be hard to replace with a snack (imo ).

My DD did drop to 3 bottles around 7.5 months, which was early but we needed to in order to get more milk in her because she was refusing due to reflux.

HTH!

Laura

[mmom]

Thanks Laura!!  He slams the 1st bottle.  Then the other bottles can take 30+ minutes depending.  He uses a nipple for thickened liquids, so I don't know how to make it any quicker.  He has reflux as well.  Although, it seems pretty controlled right now.  As you can see, he is having no difficulty gaining.  It just seems like we are forcing a bottle, if that makes sense.  DH just gave him a bottle 4 hours after his last feed and it took a while just to get 4 ounces in him.  So we gave up.  But you are right, I don't want him waking out of hunger either.

[AngelaF]

I can't remember when my first dropped the bottle, but I remember feeling confused. It was more like we were combining the lunch and mid-afternoon bottle so now it was in the middle of those times. Does that make sense? For us, DS eats a bottle at 12:30 and 4:30, so when we get to this point, I'll feed him one bottle around 2:30 and then not another one until bedtime.

It does seem a little early, but I'd say that if it takes a really long time to feed him that then you might try it. If he wakes, you can always go back to that bottle. I do remember that we poked a hole in my first son's bottle to get the flow to be a little faster.  Good luck!

[mmom]

Thanks Angela.  It seems that our mid afternoon bottle is the biggest struggle atm.  Both yesterday and the day before, he only took 4 ounces and it was a struggle.  So I think if it continues, we will have to drop a bottle

[AngelaF]

Sounds like he might be ready! Good luck!