Author Topic: 7 month old refusing to BF through the day...help!!  (Read 1674 times)

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Offline Jillianleaparsons

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7 month old refusing to BF through the day...help!!
« on: August 23, 2015, 14:37:52 pm »
Hello all!

It seems there are a lot of posts about feeding concerns/issues/schedules for 7 month olds.  I'm glad to see i'm not alone!  My little guy will be 7 months tomorrow. He has been eating solids for a little over a month now and LOVES it.  He gets so excited at meal time and will eat pretty much as much as I could offer.  This is great, but for the past 2 months or so (started before we introduced solids), he is not interested in BF during the day anymore.  I thought (hoped) it was just a phase.  He is quite a spirited little guy and Tracey says at around this age because they are so interested in exploring the new world around them BF might take a hit.  But it's been 2 months and he isn't getting back to it. An average day looks something like this...

7:00 - wake, BF (10-15 minutes)
8:00 - breakfast: cereal (mixed with BM) & fruit
9:00-10:15 - nap
11:00ish - BF (5 minutes if i'm lucky)
12:00ish - lunch: frust & veg 
12:30/1:00-2:30 - nap
3:00 - BF (5 minutes if i'm lucky)
4:30 - dinner: some combo of veg, protein & fruit (lately i've added a bit of cereal mixed with BM to get in some extra calories)
5:30/5:45 - bath, massage, story time
6:00 - 8oz bottle of BM or formula (he will sometimes BF after this as well)
6:30 - bed (we recently cut his cat nap so are working on getting this bedtime later)

He is usually up once during the night to feed, never consistent. He takes a full feed, usually 10-15min on each breast. I've tried to hold off from feeding him in hopes that he will eat better the next day (doctor recommended).  When i'm successful, I haven't fount it made much of a difference since it's the 11:00 and 3:00 feeds that he isn't interested it.  Other nights (like last night) I give in because he can't get back to sleep otherwise.  I was up for 2.5hrs with him last night doing PU/PD to no avail because he was hungry.

Is he telling me that I should feed him fewer solids so that he is more hungry for BM?
Is he telling me we should merge the 2 daytime feeds into 1 (say 1:00) feed? Something like...
7:00 - wake, BF
8:00 - breakfast
9:00 - nap
12:00 - lunch
1:00 - BF
2:00 - nap
5:00 - dinner
6:00 - bottle/bed

I know I don't want to limit the amount of milk he is getting at this age, but would he actually get more milk by just doing 1 feed than he is right now doing 2? Has anyone tried this type of schedule with a 7mo? Thoughts?

Offline creations

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Re: 7 month old refusing to BF through the day...help!!
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2015, 17:39:26 pm »
Well, ordinarily I'd think it a bit on the young side to be dropping one of those day feeds but some people do find that 2 small feeds merged to 1 ends up being a bigger feed overall.  It also looks like there are 3 good feeds in addition to those 2 smaller ones and some BM added to solids a couple of times per day too, so perhaps he gets enough over all (including the night feed which I would just give rather than trying to resettle when he is hungry).

How about switching the 11am BF to a solids snack with a drink of water (could be cheese or yoghurt if you are concerned about milk intake) and see if the 3pm feed is boosted?
One thing I noticed with my LO though is that the more solids dairy I gave him the less milk he took, as though self regulating his milk/dairy intake. If you continue to see a drop in BF intake you might try cutting out dairy solids for a few days just as an experiment to see if it effects his BF.


Offline Shiv52

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Re: 7 month old refusing to BF through the day...help!!
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2015, 19:47:02 pm »
I personally wouldn't add a snack and wouldn't be cutting any milk feeds at this stage. BM and formula isn't just about dairy but provides an overall nutrition/calories that babies need. At 7 months you really are looking for 4 good milk feeds in  the day and sometimes a NF. My DD2 did similar and on advice of a dietician I cut way back on solids and then reintroduced. I would stop adding cereal to dinner and would likely move to just breakfast and dinner and maybe do some finger foods or the like at lunch time.

BM and formula contains many more calories per oz than any fruit/veg/cereal you'd be giving at 7 months so in order to wean the NF you would need to be getting those calories in through milk feeds in the day.






Offline *Ali*

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Re: 7 month old refusing to BF through the day...help!!
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2015, 15:02:55 pm »
I agree that you should just feed him at night. It is still well within the realms of normal to have a NF at 7mo and the fact he is so difficult to settle does sound like he is hungry. And as you said it didn't help when you managed to skip the NF anyway. I don't think it matters when he has the breast milk as long as he has it (apart from for your own sleep of course!).

I would keep offering the 4 times in the day personally. That way he can take as much or as little as he likes but at least he is having it. 5mins could actually be a really good feed at this age btw. My DD is 8mo now but rarely feeds for longer unless she is sleepy. She can easily drain a breast in that time and I know from experience that I could get 7oz out of that breast if I pumped instead so she must be getting a good amount as pumping is usually less efficient.

I had to cut back on solids a bit at 7mo when my DS1 was losing interest in BFing. I only cut back a bit for a week and he started BFing for longer. After that I was able to increase the solids again without seeing an obvious drop in BFing so I think it helped. In the UK the NHS advises building up solid meals slowly until adding a third meal between 8-9mo so 3 significant meals a day is a lot for a 7mo. We do offer 3 offerings a day and have for a while now but we do baby led weaning so she wasn't taking hardly anything while she was still learning to manipulate the food. A meal might just be a mouthful or two of melon, yk?
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