8mo refusing bedtime bottle

[Samjheywood]

Hi there, my LO is 8mo and is CMPI so is on Neocate LCP milk and has been since 4mo.

He isn't overly thrilled with the milk as it doesn't taste great but from around 6.5mo refused daytime bottles so his current schedule looks like this:

0600 wakes
0600 7oz bottle (very hit and miss, usually takes 3/4oz)
0700 breakfast
0900 nap (1.5hrs)
1130 dinner
1330 nap (1.5hrs)
1530 tea
1830 8oz bottle (usually drinks 6/7)

Then has another 7oz bottle in the night.

As of this week he is refusing the bedtime bottle. I've tried bringing his tea early to 1500 but this didn't help.

I know he doesn't drink enough milk so I don't want to loose this bottle yet. I give him milk as a drink with every meal to try and top up his daily intake.

Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks

[Lolly]

At 8 months I would expect most babies to be having 3 bottles in the day and then some still have a dreamed or nightfeed. Have you tried putting another bottle in just before the afternoon nap? That's the most common pattern really with 3 bottles, a wake up feed, post lunch/pre nap and a bedtime feed.

You may find that weaning the night bottle helps the day time intake too, particularly the first feed of the day. I would start reducing that by 1oz every 3 nights so you wean it slowly.

The other thing is to scale back solids a bit, especially the tea time solids, until milk picks up a bit and then gradually increase solids again. It's quite common to need to do this, of course it depends on how much he is eating.

Laura