Refusing the bottle, driving Mommy crazy!!

[cwolff]

OK, here's what's happening.  For the past two weeks, Rachel has decided to refuse one or more of her bottles during the day and is now waking up at various times in the middle of the night starving.  It's driving me nuts.  Here was our schedule:

7:30am Wake
8am bottle
9am breakfast
10:00am Nap
12pm Wake
12:30pm bottle
2pm lunch
3pm nap
4pm wake
4:30pm bottle
5:30pm dinner
7:30pm bottle
8pm bed

Now it's all gone to hell.  Her wake times are the same, but she started to refuse the 4:30pm bottle.  So I figured OK, I'll just drop it and go straight to dinner.  Well, she was fine with it, but then started waking in the middle of the night and refusing to go back to sleep unless I fed her.  And she took a full bottle at that time.  So this sometimes doesn't screw up our morning bottle, if the night feeding is 2am or so.  But like this morning, it was 5:15am, and so she just didn't have her morning bottle.  But the past few days, she's been fighting the lunch bottle too!  Today she had her morning bottle early, 5:15am.  Then breakfast around 9am and a nap.  By 12:30pm I figured she must be ready for another bottle.  So I tried, and tried and tried.  She maybe took 1-2oz.  I think she is teething as she's doing some weird faces, drooling and has a cheek rash, but so far I can feel no teeth.  And the girl has got to eat, even if she is teething.  So back to today, I finally gave up on the bottle, and fed her lunch which she ate all of.  She's very good with her solids.  I've also tried by the way to cut back her solids intake, which still hasn't made a difference in her refusing the bottles.  Finally I got her to eat about 6oz in the late afternoon, fed her dinner and she ate all of her bedtime bottle.  But I would bet money she's going to wake in the night hungry again. 

So I wanted to know from everyone if my daughter is trying to wean herself off of the bottles?  She hasn't gotten the hang of sucking from the cup yet, I have to take the stopper out and give it to her myself, so I can't just switch and put the formula in a cup.  I am seriously considering calling the doctor and asking what I should do because I can't just stop giving her any solids because what if she still won't drink her bottles, then I'm really screwed.  And she's hungry, I know she is, because she'll eat solids.  But it's like she hasn't got the time to sit and drink the bottles anymore, she's too busy.  Is anyone else having this problem, and what are you doing about it?

[NYCKelly]

My daughter is the same age and is starting to do the same thing.  More and more she's become disinterested in the bottle.  However, she loves her solids and doesn't give me a hard time when it's time to eat them.  A cousin of mine told me her daughter stopped drinking formula when she was about this age. 

[tylersmommy]

Chloe-

It does sound like teething to me. Sucking on a bottle might be uncomfortable on her gums. Have you tried any pain meds yet? Sometimes Tylenol/Motrin at key intervals during the day can help. When it helped Tyler, I'd give Tylenol every 4 hrs during the day as recommended...which just so happened to coincide with his bottles. I'd dose him about 20 min before the bottle. Orajel right before giving a bottle can help too. At that age, Tyler was a spaz with the sippy, so when I resorted to that for formula I'd give it to him just like a bottle. There was no way I could hand him the sippy and expect him to do anything productive with it. That usually got us through. Hopefully she'll get through it soon!

[cwolff]

I've tried tylenol a couple of times, but not really at key intervals.  Only when she's seemed really fussy.  I think I will try that today.  Ironically, last night she slept thru the night with no bottle and ate her morning bottle & solids just fine.  The trick will be to see what she does this afternoon and evening.  I wish I could know if it was teething for sure but she has no teeth so far and nothing seems different in her mouth as far as I can tell.  Argh!  Thanks for the advice.

[Olivia's Mommy]

Chloe--my LO is about 3 weeks older than your Rachel, and has been doing the same thing now for almost 2 weeks. We have the occasional night where she sleeps through, but it has become the exception. I finally dropped to 3 bottles yesterday, thinking maybe she was finally ready (had tried before, but had night wakings then, too). She did fine yesterday and actually slept through the night. But today she only had a total of 11 oz by the time she went to bed!! She woke up a couple of hours later, so I fed her and she took another 7 oz. I'm hoping that will get her through the night. We have a dr appt this Friday, so I'm going to ask her about it. If you figure anything out, let me know....I'll do the same. Since all our LOs are the same age, I wonder if it's a developmental thing?

[cwolff]

I think it is developmental to some degree, because still no other signs of teething.  Plus, I think she's decided she'd like to extend her bottles to 5 hours in between instead of 4 hours.  If I can manage this, she seems to be doing better.  Whenever we drop either a meal during the day or a bottle, invariably she will wake in the night hungry.  So I know she still needs the food, but she apparently doesn't know it, or doesn't mind nearly as much as her mommy getting up in the middle of the night.  Oh well, I'm sure this too will pass.