12 month old refusing bottle and only wants solids - Help

[Snu]

Hi everyone,
I am really stressed out! My 12 month old son is completely refusing his formula/ bottle. He is only getting 6-7 ounces in the am and pm and is no out right refusing it. He won't even suck on the bottle. Is this normal at this age?

It's been a few days and I'm concerned about his intake since he is not getting formula. I have been sneaking it into his oatmeal three times a day, but that's alot of oatmeal.

Can anyone please give me suggestions of what types of food I can put his formula into? Or even if I transition him to whole milk, what can I put it into in terms of cooking? He likes the texture and consitency of pureed food.

This is his current feeding schedule:

7am - Bottle ( 6 ounces of formula - which he is refusing)
8am - 5 tablespoons of cereal (made with 3.5 ounces formula), 2 tablespoons fruit (prunes)
9:45am - 4 tablespoons yougurt
11:15am - 6 tablespoons (chicken/ vegetable puree) and 4 tablespoons fruit
2:30pm - 5 tablespoons oatmeal and bananas pureed
5pm - 5 tablespoons (chicken/ vegetable puree) and 3 tabelspoons fruit
640- Bottle ( 6 ounces of formula - which he is refusing)

Please any help in terms of getting the 12 ounces of formula that he is now refusing into food would be appreciated.

Thanks so much,

[Lolly]

As he is 1 year now I will move this over to eating for toddlers!

From 1 year they only need 14-16oz of dairy to get their needs met so you can certainly transition him to cow's milk now, maybe he would prefer a sippy cup or straw cup now. Is he teething? That can make them reluctant to suck so it could pass in a few days although you could use this as a good chance to ditch the bottles if you wanted to.

In terms of food you can give him yoghurts, cheese, cheese sauces, custard, rice puddings - they are all good "milky" foods. Is he eating any finger foods at all? Really by now he "should" be having a good range of finger foods and table foods so I would really start thickening those purees by mashing foods and giving lots of opportuntiy for self feeding finger foods as he needs this to develop his oral muscles as well as his self feeding skills.

What do you think?

Laura

[Snu]

Hi Laura,

I tried him this morning on cows milk in a sippy and he took one sip and then pushed it away. Is that normal? Should I just keep trying? I even tried it in a little glass...he takes it initally but once he tastes it, he pulls away. Does anyone know of a whole milk type that children like? I am just using plain homo milk and once it hits his mouth his pulls away. He does drink the same milk from our cereal, but I assume because the taste from the cereal is sweetening the milk he likes it or because he is getting it with a spoon.

This morning his diaper was pretty dry because he did not drink his milk last night so I had to give it to him in cereal. I'm worried about dehydration. He takes water well from the sippy.

In terms of fingers foods, he is very picky. He eats grapes, rice puff snacks, cheerios. I have been trying to get him to take more thickened food, but he gags. I will keep trying. I don't want him to be on purees forever! He has two upper and two bottom teeth. He was very slow in getting them.

[Lolly]

The amount of teeth they have doesn't make a lot of difference to early foods really - their gums are very hard and can mush most things!

Keep trying with the lumpier/ thicker textures gagging is very normal and part of the learning to eat process. When they are gagging they are learning to protect their airways by moving food around in their mouths. My two were terrible gaggers and still do now at times when they have new textures, it's not nice to watch but if you stay calm they do sort it out for themselves!

It is also normal to refuse cow's milk at first, you could try mixing it into his formula and gradually increae the amount of cow's milk so he gets used to it gradually. Plain full fat homo milk is the best to offer at this age really. If he is taking water well make sure you offer it to him with meals etc so he doesn't get dehydrated.

Laura

[Lemonthyme]

It took some months for my LO to accept cow's milk.  I started offering it around 10 months once a day as I needed to drop a breastfeed due to going back to work (this was with my health visitor's blessing btw) but he still only took one or two sips.  Then suddenly around 13 months, probably due to teething he didn't want to breastfeed so I started offering a cup of milk after each breastfeed and then he dropped the breastfeeds.

I'd definitely start trying to transition to a cup because it's better for their teeth but apart from that it's really easy to sneak milk into their meals.  If you think about it you can have milk on cereal in the morning, milk in lunch say with cauliflower cheese:
http://mamacook.blogspot.com/2011/08/cauliflower-cheese.html

or fish pie:
http://mamacook.blogspot.com/2011/02/fish-pie-for-everyone.html

Followed by fruit and a yoghurt.

Then have tea, perhaps some salmon and broccoli pasta:
http://mamacook.blogspot.com/2011/08/salmon-and-broccoli-pasta.html

followed by pannacotta:
http://mamacook.blogspot.com/2011/05/yoghurt-panna-cotta-ok-for-babies-if.html

Or a fool:
http://mamacook.blogspot.com/2011/08/blackberry-fool-for-toddlers.html

And you've got loooooads of milk inside your little one!  I mean I've probably gone OTT on the above but you see what I mean?  It's only 14-16oz of dairy, half of that he's getting in the bottle; with the above recipes you've probably already managed to get 7oz more in by lunchtime! 

I wouldn't worry about the milk but I would persist on trying to get more texture in or switching to finger foods. Texture and finger foods are meant to be good for speech development.

[MadisonC]

I slowly introduced cows milk into my LO's formula at 11 months and he didn't like it that much but now he loves it.  Also, when he first started eating chunkier finger foods and different foods he would gage as well but it is just because of the different texture. It doesn't take long for them to use to the different textures.. now at least two of his meals are all finger foods and if not I like to at least offer some sort of finger food at the end of each meal. 

[KatieR]

I found warming the milk up slightly helped with Alexandra.