If you find that LO is refusing feeds, not finishing feeds, or that you are starting to feel that you spend half your day trying to get LO to take his/her milk, it might be time to drop a bottle feed.
There are some sample routines here for spacing feeds/sleeps/solids as applicable here:
Sample routines for dropping bottles (daytime core hours only)Bear in mind that you do want to keep your focus on formula/EBM as the main source of nutrition until a year of age. There are more calories/fast/nutrients in milk than the majority of solids ounce for ounce. Moving to solids too soon can often result in worsened sleep from an active tummy or LO waking for the nutritional benefit of milk.
General recs for milk intake based on age:
** up to 10 months of age, minimum of 24 ozs per day (though some LOs will go far beyond this, as high as 35-40ozs during a growth spurt).
** once LO is 10 months of age, it's fine to drop down to 20ozs a day as you move the focus slowly from milk to solids in preparation for the move to solids as nutrition at the age of one (milk becomes a drink at this time and not a meal replacement).
** Remember that dairy all counts towards milk intake recs as baby nears a year of age - yogurt, cheese, milky sauces etc are all included in dairy requirements.
