Combination-fed baby getting fussier (10.5 months)

[beckstrous]

Hello - I am not sure if this should be on the breastfeeding board or the bottle feeding board

My LO is nearly 10.5 months old and has been combination fed from about day 12, since I had supply issues (long story but I was told to top up with formula and a midwife came and fed my daughter her first bottle, so I didn't have a choice - still bf-ing though and no regrets!).

She's on two feeds a day now, and I still do a breastfeed first and then formula, before breakfast and before her bedtime routine. With the bedtime milk, it's impossible now to get her to take any formula unless she is allowed to flit between the boob and the bottle. She seems to prefer the boob most of the time. If she doesn't have the boob at all it's hard to get her to take formula, which is weird because for quite a while I think she probably preferred the bottle and would easily sink 7oz after a breastfeed. Now she starts to fuss after 1oz. I have never trusted my supply that much even though I am still breastfeeding so I get a bit worried if she bats the bottle away like that. I can usually get her to drink about 3oz of formula but this is only after a bf of maybe 7 mins and then flitting between the two after I think she is done on the boob.

I know this sounds like a bit of an odd problem but I am going away for a night soon and worried that it will be impossible to get her to drink her bedtime milk! I just wondered if anyone had had any experience of this?

Sorry if I should have posted on the other board!

[*Ali*]

My kids never really took a bottle after the a few in the very early months but I had the odd night away or would miss BT now and then and they were fine. Have you tried offering the milk in a sippy or open cup at a different time? She may be better at taking it is the boob isn't there as an option and someone else is offering it.

Could you offer milk alongside lunch or at times throughout the day to increase her milk intake without the need for her to take a big BT bottle?

Does she eat a decent amount of solids?

[Fiver]

I found when I was mixed feeding DS that when he started to get fussy with the bottle that he needed a different teat size.  What are you using at the moment?

[beckstrous]

Thanks ladies. I guess on the day, I will ask my parent to give her lots of milky things! Sometimes she will prefer to drink milk from a cup but we have not tried that for a while (she loves it with water, though).

I suppose I am just worried about her waking in the night for my parents! She does eat a decent amount of solids and has cut back on milk quite a lot since going to 3 meals a day.

Fiver, we are still using no 2 teats - mainly because I didn't want her to start to prefer the bottle. We only switched to these 2 months ago! I wonder if we need faster ones or if we should just start training her to use the cup. She always gets really excited when she sees the cup because she likes to drink from it herself. She's never tried to do this with the bottles, which is odd!

[Fiver]

If she's happy taking from the cup, it might be worth persisting with that just because that's a skill she'll need to learn, whereas the bottle will be gradually fading out.

That said, if you're happy to keep the bottle, you might need to change teat again.  My DS used to just play with the teat in his mouth and sort of chew it when he needed a faster teat.