6.5 mo not interested in solids...going to 3hr a time

[hotturnip]

My lo is 6.5 moths old and I'm just having issues in general. By the way she's 22lbs already.

 Let me start with eating. We started solids at just before 5 months. She's still only eating at most 2oz. at a time. She's never excited to eat either. Never flapping her arms with excitement. Barely opens her mouth for the spoon. She also seems to have the tongue thrust reflex still. She's excited about finger foods though. I can put an apple slice to her mouth and she goes crazy. I gave her puffs for the first time today and loved it. BLW seem like the way to go for her but I'm scared and unsure of how to start. Wanted to add that I have more success with giving her baby food before a bottle than I do after waiting an  hour or two after a bottle. She usually consumes about 40oz. of formula a day and maybe 4oz. of food.

Second problem is EW although it's getting better in  the last week. For almost 2 months she was waking between 5-5:30. Usually I can resettle and she would sleep to 8-8:30. I've been trying an EBT and I think it's finally helping. She usually wakes at 6-6:30.

At the moment she is mostly on a 2.5 hr A time. If I try to stretch her A time to 3hrs. how would that work since she doesn't really eat solids? I give her a bottle every 4hrs during the day and still cluster feed in the evening. If I keep her awake for 3hrs,then put her down for a nap, wouldn't she wake early to eat? Should I just wait till solid food is more established, not looking like that's going to happen soon.

We don't have a set EASY. Here is what we've done today so far.
7:45 bt night before
4:30 NW, unusual for her, normally doesn't NW at all
5:00 resettle without feeding
7:15 WK
7:45 8oz. bottle
9:45 nap
11:30 wakeup
11:45  bottle
1:15 solids 1oz. and a couple puffs
2:00 nap
4:00 still sleeping, I will probably wake her and bottle
Estimated
5:30 solids, maybe 2oz, followed by bottle
7:15 bedtime bottle

I'd love to have a predictable EASY. She is my second child, angel baby. Ijjust can't figure her out. My first child was an easy EASY angel baby.

[hotturnip]

Wanted to add that she's also starting to not finish her bottles. She did just cut a new tooth but it's completely cut now and she's still not finishing her bottle. She's still drinking 5-6oz at her cluster feed in the evening so even though I would love to cut it for convenience sake, I  don't think I can. Is the cluster feed hurting me as far as solids go?

[hotturnip]

bump please

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi there, sorry your post got missed.
Re the feeding you can have a look here: Baby-Led Weaning and there is more information here, generally about introducing solids: FAQ's - Frequently Asked Questions & Related Information
I don't see any problem with the fact that she is excited about finger foods but not the spoon. Till LOs are 1yo solid food is more for fun and trying out, they shouldn't rely on that nutritionally.
I understand you say that it's easier to feed her solids before the milk feed but I'd still be careful with that. You already see a drop in milk intake and having solids first can affect that. IIWY I'd reverse it again.
Cluster feeding is meant for babies up to 8 weeks, I think she is too old for that and it's probably too much for her little tummy to handle.

At the moment she is mostly on a 2.5 hr A time. If I try to stretch her A time to 3hrs. how would that work since she doesn't really eat solids? I give her a bottle every 4hrs during the day and still cluster feed in the evening. If I keep her awake for 3hrs,then put her down for a nap, wouldn't she wake early to eat?

She might not wake up out of hunger and will surprise you. Babies this age often don't need to feed every 4h anymore. But if you try it out and she does wake up early from a nap and you think it's hunger then you can offer a top up feed short before the nap, but still have some A time so she doesn't start to associate feeding with sleeping.

Looking at your routine it looks pretty good. I think that what you see at night is a result of not enough A time and once you are closer to 3h A time I think the early morning will get better.
HTH .

[hotturnip]

Thank you  so much for your advice! I'll try it.  I have nothing to lose. I know she can handle a 3 hr A before bed and probably before her second nap. I'll have  to work on her first A time though. Should I cap any of her naps?

My biggest concern with trying this is her new eating habits. She's becoming fussy with her bottles. Even with her first  bottle of the day,  she will only drink 5 oz and  it the bottle out and shake her head back and forth refusing it.  I can wait 5 minutes and give her the bottle again and she will drink another ounce maybe and refuse it again. It sometimes takes me  an hour to finish an 8 ounce bottle  when she used to drink 9 ounces at one time.  I think it started with her teething but I'm not sure that that's the issue anymore.  I'm wondering if she's getting distracted with my two year old watching her play with her toys.  I've even thought about trying a faster flow nipple to see if that makes a difference, right now we're using medium flow. With her not being very interested in solid food,  I'm concerned that she's not getting enough  ounces during the 12 hour day to sustain her through the night.  I know I sound like a crazy lady and I just need to trust my baby.

[hotturnip]

 sorry I forgot to add that she was eating two ounces of solid food at lunch and 2 ounces of solid food at dinner.  not very excited to eat it but she was.  I stopped offering her dinner so that she would stop pooping at 5 in the morning which worked  but now that I've started offering her food again she's not eating even the two ounces sometimes she's not even eating one ounce.

[Ima shel Alon]

If she can only handle now 2.5h A time then I'd increase the A time gradually so she doesn't get OT, by 10-15min every 3-4 days.
She is already on 2 naps a day so I don't see a reason to cap her naps right now. If things will get difficult in the future then we can re think it.
Re the feeding and the bottles, I would try a faster flow IIWY. But for us it was also teething, whenever teeth were moving there was no feeding! Till this day, actually, I always know that he is teething if he refuses his food.
But if you are concerned about milk feeds then you should really not offer solids before milk because she will just take less and less milk.
How many ozs is she taking now in 24h?

[hotturnip]

Total with food she takes 43-44oz.  40oz. milk and 3-4oz. food.

I  think I'm going to wait a few more days before switching to the fast flow just to be sure that it's not teething. This morning she drank 5oz and abruptly quit. I waited a couple minutes and offered again. She opened her mouth for it, took another oz at  the most and quit.

I  think we  are on the right track with sleep at least. I've noticed over the past several weeks that she usually sleeps a total of 14-14.5 hrs in a 24 hr period. She also usually sleeps 10-10.5 hrs at night. Yesterday she had close to 4hrs of daytime sleep so I put her to bed at 8:45. She slept till close to 7.

[hotturnip]

She eventually drank 8oz. in 45minutes.  I let her play on the floor for 30minutes in between and  I had to sing to her to distract her to drink the last 3oz.

[Ima shel Alon]

The amount she is taking sounds ok to me.
Re night sleep, IMO it's better to aim for a 12h day, 12h night (unless you know your baby is more of a 13h day, 11h night kind of baby). 10h doesn't sound enough to me... It could be that the 4h day sleep IS too much and that 3-3.5h would be better and will lengthen the night.

[hotturnip]

I agree. She normally does closer to 3.5-3.75hrs a day.  I think once I extend her A time to 3hrs. everything will fall into place and hopefully it will increase her appetite again too. Thank  you for all your help! I'll keep you posted.

[Ima shel Alon]

[hotturnip]

ok. This girl is driving me crazy.
Sleep wise, nothing new. Here is our EASY fromforyesterday afternoon. She had a total of 3.5hrs daytime sleep between 2 naps.
S 2:30-4:30
E 4:30 bottle
A
E 6:00  1oz. solids& 2oz. formula
A 7:20 bath
S 7:50 7oz asleep by 8:00
4:30am wake, just moaning, not crying
5:30am sounds like she's getting upset so I go in, swaddle her arms, and shsh pat for 10 mins, she is quiet but not close to sleep so I leave, I go back in 10mins later to do it all again because she is getting upset.
6:45am I have finally resettled her without a feeding
8:30am wakeup

Eatwise. She is all over the place. Yesterday total she had 35oz of formula and 3oz. of solids. She normally has a combined of 43-44oz. I did go ahead and tried to Fast Flow nipples.  she had absolutely no problems with them but it still did not make  her drink more at one sitting.  this morning with her first bottle she drinks 6 ounces  and then my 2 year old distracted her and she did not want her bottle anymore.  I waited 15 minutes and gave her the bottle again but she did not want it.  one hour after starting her feeding I gave her the bottle again and she did finish its while my 2 year old was out of the room  and with some resistance.  she then had a nap and once she woke up which was 4.5 hours from her first feeding she only drink 2 ounces from her bottle and stopped  because she was again distracted by my 2 year old.  she then refuses to take a bottle back.  she doesn't act uncomfortable while she's drinking.  I just don't know what to do I don't want to start a snacking habits

[Ima shel Alon]

Hugs, hun, I know how difficult it can be.
I don't think the night is too bad, but it's really really important that you do go to her till she is crying for you. The moaning and getting upset is ok, she should go through that and it might be her way of trying to settle back to sleep. She'll let you know when she needs you. If you go in and she in the middle of trying to self sooth then you are actually interrupting her and might make her more awake, yk?
Have you though of still having one NF if the early morning is so difficult? Will she settle straight away with a feed? Some parents prefer to do that and let LO grow out of it than dealing with a NW in the early morning.

Re the feeding - are you giving the solids an hour after milk?
I wouldn't be too worried as long as you space the feeds enough for her to take a full feed. She can get used to snacking very easily if you let her.
Have you tried feeding straight away after a sleep still in a dark room and with white noise (if you are using it), it can help a lot with the distraction.

[hotturnip]

Well her sleep is getting worse. It's almost to the point that I can't resettle her anymore. Here was yesterday EASY. My mom was watching her all day.

7:00 wake, can't remember if she woke earlier
7:30 E bottle
9:00 E solids
10:00 S
11:30 wake
12:00 E bottle
1:30 E solids
2:30 S
4:30 E wake bottle
6:00 E solids
8:00 E/S, my mom gave her bedtime bottle, I could hear her crying, she actually didn't fall asleep at the bottle and didn't want anymore milk, went to her room to try and settle her down, she wouldn't, then 2yr old came in and baby got even more excited, decided to bring her downstairs for 15mins, took her back to room, she still protested sleep
9:15 E/S eventually accepted the bottle again and went to sleep

4:30am waking up, moaning etc.
5:30am getting upset, I go in, she get's even more upset when I go in, doesn't want to be swaddled, doesn't want shsh pat, doesn't want to sit in chair with me, she screaming/crying at this point, I turn on night light, I make a bottle and change her diaper, she wants nothing to do with the bottle, I turn on her mobile and music, nothing is working. I just know that she wants to go downstairs.
6:45am I finally give in and take her downstairs
7:00am she takes the bottle finally, drinks 4-5ozs, and starts to fall asleep. I immediately wake her and take her outside to finish bottle and keep her awake. She doesn't want bottle anymore.
7:20am we come back in and put her on the floor to play
7:40am I am typing this and she is playing on the floor

What do I do?! Should I keep her awake till 9 or as long as possible? When do I feed her again?

Feedings, I have decided to space it ever 4.5, except for the bedtime bottle. I'll give that to her at the 3hr. mark or whatever it falls on. It does help to feed her in her room in the dark with some quiet background music.

I've also found a local hospital that has a Pediatric Sleep Center that I'm going to call and see what help they can offer but I can't all until Tuesday.