When to drop a bottle?

[MiniNs]

Hi everyone,
DS2 is 8 months and has recently started to lose interest in both his pm feed and bedtime feed.

I’m wondering if I need to switch around my timings or drop a bottle - seems how he’s now 8 months and is very well established with weaning.

Current EASY:

WU: 6:00
E: bottle 6-6:30
E: breakfast 7:30
S: 9:00-10:30/11
E: bottle 11:00
E: lunch 12:00
S: 14:00-15:30
E: bottle 15:30 (doesn’t always want, or sometimes just has half, but will sometimes have all)
E: dinner 17:00
E: BT bottle 18:30 - consistently now refusing after 1oz
BT: 18:45

[Lolly]

Hi,

It's usually around 10 months that bottles start to get dropped, but it's not uncommon to start earlier. We dropped my DD to 3 bottles at 8.5 months because she wasn't taking in enough in the bottles she had.

How much is he getting in 24 hours now? What generally happens is they have the wake up bottle, snack, nap, lunch, bottle, nap, tea then bedtime bottle. If dropping a bottle doesn't impact the overall amount of milk he has much then trust your instincts and space the bottles out more.

Laura

[MiniNs]

Thank you, Laura, for your reply! 😊

He has 6-7oz at breakfast, another 5-6oz at 11 and then the other 2 bottles are hit and miss, but I offer 6oz - he’ll perhaps have 3-4oz mid afternoon and then, as I said, I’m lucky to get an oz in him at bedtime.

So, at about 15-18oz, he is already on the low side of milk intake, I’m aware. He has a milk allergy and is on prescription milk which doesn’t taste great. DS1 was the same - never took more than 5-6oz per feed, and he dropped bottles at 9months (I think!)

I’m just not sure, if I drop to 3 bottles, when to offer the middle one?

Would this work (I’ve included his current naps):

WU/E bottle: 6:00
E: breakfast 7:30
S: 9:00-10:30/11
E: snack 10:30/11
E lunch 12:00
E: bottle 13:30
S: 14:00-15:30
E: dinner 17:00
E: bottle 18:30
S: 18:45-19:00


*edit*
So i decided to try the above today, seems how he didn’t cry for his bottle after his morning nap. But he still only had 3-4oz of that feed. We’ll see if he takes more than usual at bedtime though to even it out 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Lolly]

It is tricky to fit it in.

I think I’d just do lunch early when he wakes from his nap rather than snack then lunch. If you do lunch around 11ish he should be hungrier for his bottle at 13.30. I think my two used to have their dinner around 4/4.30 at this age too so they were more ready for the bedtime bottle.

What do you think?

Laura

[MiniNs]

Yes that makes sense. I have tried doing dinner at 4:30pm before, to try and encourage more intake on the bedtime feed but it didn’t have any impact - but I will try it again as part of the bottle drop.

Today, he has taken a full feed at 6:15am and then again at 1:45pm, so hoping to do a earlier dinner and then he might take a larger feed at bedtime too.

Thanks for the advice - it’s definitely given me something to try and work around

[Lolly]

Good luck!

Give it a week or so on a new routine before you change anything else, see how he adapts to this

Laura