6.5 month old draining a 260ml bottle each night

[Canadian Nat]

I have been posting on the night wakings board for other night waking issues (she's been waking 2/3 times within the first two hours after bedtime), but I wondered whether my baby draining the bottle each night might be adding to the night wakings? I was advised to post my query about that here.

Some background:

Basically, my 6.5 month old is breastfed but for one bottle of formula a night which is given at the bedtime feed.  She is roughly on a 4 hour EASY, but no day is the same exactly with timings of naps and feeds but I stick to the 4 hour EAST as best I can. 

She wakes unfortunately early in the morning, either 3/4/5am.  I feed her at this point since she has her last feed at about 7.15/7.30pm at night.  Then I try and put her back to sleep, having treated the feed like a night feed.  She often will go back to sleep with the paci after a while. 

She is weaning and takes about 3 icecube sized portions of food per meal.  I give her meals twice day.  I give the rest of the feeds as breastmilk and she has breastmilk after each meal as well.  I let her have as much milk as she wants after each meal.  So, to summarise: she is roughly having 4 feeds a day, plus a night feed (the 3/4/5am feed). With two of these feeds she is having her weaning meals.

My first question is this:  Why is she completely draining a bottle of formula at bedtime (260ml)?  Should she be doing this? Should she be having more food/milk in the day so that she is hopefully more full and doesn't completely drain the bottle?  I can't fit anymore milk in the bottle so what should I be doing, because I am never sure whether she wakes because she is hungry still. 

My second question is this: When she wakes at night (within the first 2 hours after bedtime), I try teething gel and put the paci in if she doesn't settle on my shoulder.  If the paci doesn't work and it is at least 6 hours since she last fed, then I feed her.  Is this the right way to go about it?

[Lolly]

Can you increase her feeds during the day and see if that helps? Are her daytime feeds from a bottle or the breast

Many babies drain their bedtime feeds, it's not unusual. You could make up a second smaller bottle at bedtime and see if another 60ml or so helps her.

Laura

[jessmum46]

I would switch things around and offer milk before solids, with solids an hour later.  I wonder if the fact she is eating the (low-calorie) solids first is filling her small stomach, so she takes less of the high-calorie milk?  Just a thought

[Canadian Nat]

In reply to your queries:

I could try and increase her feeds in the day, by maybe cluster feeding every evening before the bedtime feed.  I could see if that helps.  Her daytime feeds are breast only.  The only bottle I give her is the bedtime one and that is formula.  I might try and do another bottle, that's definitely something I'll consider.  If babies drain the bottle and it is a common thing, doesn't that mean that they might still be hungry and wake up earlier in the morning/during the night?  Which might be what she is doing?

And, yes, a good thought about her getting full up on the low calorie food first.  I hadn't thought about it like that.  But I am a bit confused though because I thought that you should give them the weaning food first, so that they are hungry to try new things, and then as they gradually have more quantity of food over time, they should reduce naturally the amount of milk they take afterwards, thereby leading towards them dropping milk feeds after food, which is the goal isn't it?  Wouldn't giving the milk first make her just keep taking lots of milk and not get used to having more food instead?  Also, if I gave milk at one time and then food the next hour, I might feel like I end up feeding all day long, and not getting anything much else done.  I also have a 2 year old you see and she needs feeding at different times to the baby.  When my 2 year old was a baby and I was weaning her, the health visitor said that I should give her the food first because of the reason I stated above.  And it seemed to all go smoothly with her gradually dropping feeds.  I am just worried that if I did it the other way around, she would just keep having milk forever!

Please do let me know your thoughts on that as I am confused about it all. 

[Lolly]

There are different thoughts on the best way to wean to solids, the BW is to do milk first and then solids as part of A time. Milk is supposed to be their main source of calories/ fats/ nutrients until they are 1, so they should maintain their milk levels until closer to 1 and the solids supplement the milk as they grow and need more calories. Most bottle fed babies drop to 3 bottles around 10 months and 2 bottles around 1 and then transition to cow's milk and cups. I *think* the recs are to maintain 4 breastfeeds until 1 or very close to but some will drop a feed or 2 earlier.

It does seem like all you do is feed at this stage but it will get easier! Can you try and tweak meal times so that both kids eat at the same time? I have 2.5 years between my two and they had breakfast, lunch and evening meal at the same time with maybe an extra snack for my older child. When DD was a baby she had milk on wake up and then they both had breakfast at 7.30/8ish for example.

Laura

[Canadian Nat]

Ah, right...so do you think my health visitor said to do it food first, then milk for my first baby because she was being fed differently to my new baby?  (My first one was breastfed and had top up formula at each and every feed).  So perhaps she was giving me advice to suit her milk feed regime?  Whereas with my new baby, she is breast fed only and so maybe that is why I've been told by my current (different) health visitor to give her milk first and then solids?

[Lolly]

Ah, right...so do you think my health visitor said to do it food first, then milk for my first baby because she was being fed differently to my new baby?  (My first one was breastfed and had top up formula at each and every feed).  So perhaps she was giving me advice to suit her milk feed regime?  Whereas with my new baby, she is breast fed only and so maybe that is why I've been told by my current (different) health visitor to give her milk first and then solids?

Nope - from experience most HVs (and there are *some* good ones) are trained to confuse us with conflicting advice which bears little reality to current medical knowledge because it's mostly based on what they did I always listened carefully to advice from my HVs then did my own research and did what I felt was best - and by research I mean consulting the wisdom of BW

We can only make suggestions based on Tracy Hogg's methods, if you want to follow your HV then that's what you should do - you have to be comfortable with the things you do for your babies as you know them best!

Laura

[Canadian Nat]

So if I give breast milk first, and then a little later (an hour or another appropriate time to eat with the family) I give the weaning food, when do I start counting the 4 hour til the next feed?  Normally I would count from the start of the feed, until the start of the next feed 4 hours later.  So for example, if I am giving milk at 7.30am and give weaning food at 8.30am, does the next feed start at 11.30am or 12.30pm?

[Lolly]

Count the normal milk feed times, so if 7.30 is milk time, the next will be 11.30. You may need to watch how much solids you give for a while so as not to fill up too much.

Laura

[Canadian Nat]

OK but how will she know to drink less milk in time and eventually drop feeds?

[Lolly]

What will happen is that as solids gradually increases she will shorten or refuse one or both of her day feeds so you will be able to swap things around so the 2 day feeds become one feed at a different time or you will stop one day feed and offer a snack instead. It's not that she will know to take less milk, rather that solids intake will increase and her need for milk will decrease. The breastfeeding board will give you advice on that!

With my DD she had a wake up bottle, mid morning bottle and post afternoon nap bottle then bedtime bottle. Her 2 daytime bottles were getting smaller so she then had a wake up bottle, snack, lunch then bottle just before her afternoon nap and then snack, tea and bed time bottle. This was about 8.5 months as she was a milk refusing refluxer so that helped her, but around 10 months is a common time to drop to 3 bottles for formula fed babies.

At your baby's age milk is still the most important thing so concentrate on the milk feeds with solids as an additional supplement. We gave finger foods from 6 months along with mush, so if you aren't doing finger foods it's a good time to start. Offer a sippy of water with solids meals too so she can learn to drink from a cup.

Laura

[Canadian Nat]

OK, thanks for explaining all that.  I'll try and 'trust' that she will naturally just shorten or refuse milk first as time goes on. 

Do I just gradually increase the amount of solids at a certain time/when I see fit?  Or increase it if I think she is polishing it all off quickly and seems to want more?

I'll try the breast feeding board if I need to about that other point too.  Thanks again.

[Lolly]

I increased the amount for my two as they seemed to want more! I think they were on 3 meals by 7.5 months so I was guided by them. I also did a mostly finger foods meal at tea time so they didn't fill up too much and took a good bottle at bedtime.

Laura

[Canadian Nat]

Thank you Laura.