Looks like its all over for me now then!

[Flossam]

DS has refused the evening breast feed he has been having for the past two nights. Just not interested. Gets upset if I persist. Will try again tomorrow night and I have not been getting het up about it, so I don't think it's that. He has been mixed feeding since 5 months, progressively more and more and is now 8.5 mths and just having the one evening feed. Have gone back to work and am not always able to feed him anymore, so I suppose this should be expected. Just quite really, which is being totally selfish I know.

[dejags]

Flossam, totally reasonable to be selfish in this regard. Who wouldn't want to have some close time with their baby. What about on weekends, has he only been feeding once, or do you let him feed whenever he feels like it?

[Donbean]

ahhh, i so sympathise with you over this. Mine was about 8 months when i finally stopped due to going back to work but mostly because he wasnt bothered that much.
I continued to express and use the milk to mix in his food and for occasional bottles.
Sympathies.

[Mojomummy]

Hi, my friend was a similar situation. She oercame it by not giving him a bottle, then when he really wouldn't latch on, giving it to him & then quickly taking it away & (her words) stuffing her nipple in his mouth. She said it was quite tough but they got back on to bf again. The thing with bottles is they don't have to work so hard to get to the milk.

Or perhaps you could get DS in bed with you first thing in the morning & BF him then ? He might be surprised by change in routine & accept it ? This worked for DD & I, she BF like this from about 15 mths old & until just recently ( 2yrs). A bit longer than expected but worked well, I had an extra lie-in & she, so far, has been very healthy

Hope all goes well

[Flossam]

Thanks for the advice. Dejags, I haven't really wanted to mess around too much with my supply. As you may know I work as a nurse, I do 12 and a half hour days with 2-3 hrs travelling time each day, and I would not really be able to express at work. I am only working 2 days a week on a casual basis atm, although that changes in a couple of weeks, I will hopefully still only do the equivilant of two days a week. I worry that if I try to feed him more I will end up being engorged.

I'm afraid I have just generally got totally lazy with the whole expressing thing. If he is having two bottles of formula a day anyhow I really can't see the point of trying to express just to mix with food. I have always struggled to get enough expressed for DS and kind of gave up trying when I introduced the formula. I know this sounds terrible. I am trying to cook more and more food of my own for him though .

MojoMummy, thanks for that idea, I might give it a try for the mid morning feed, after 3 days having taken nothing I would hope to have a half decent amount in there. We have only recently cut out his early morning feed (which was BF) to make him hungrier for his solids. I wonder if this is what mucked everything up in the first place though - I fed him on Sat morning to sooth him as he was finding it hard to calm down for a nap when he was obviously tired. Will definately try it though, thank you.

[Flossam]

I managed to feed him in the middle of the night in the end. He woke at four and seemed to be rooting , so we will see if he decides he likes it tonight!

[Mojomummy]

Hi Flossam, that's really good :0

I understand that it's still really important for babies that age to have morning milk, rather than the food.

We followed the Gina Ford weaning, which has worked really well & if you're interested I can dig it up & give you the details on approx times etc ? Might be helpful to maintain, where possible, same times etc so DS knows what to expect ?

Let us know how you get on tonight

[Flossam]

Hi Mojo mummy. As I understand it as long as they are still having 20oz of milk a day, in food or as a drink they should be fine. DS has two 9 oz bottles a day, then usually a BF at night, although he has been having another 6oz formula past two nights. So I think we are well covered, not even including the porridge, yoghurt cheese etc. Thats what I thought was correct anyhow.

[Mojomummy]

how's it going ?

[Flossam]

Nothing since. Had a bit of an upset today, will try and feed him in the morning tomorrow and see but I really do think he has had enough of mummy milk . Thanks for all your help, I will post tomorrow and let you know how I get on!

[bobbybob]

Having been reading these threads since ds was about 4 months old, I am seeing a correlation between being 8 months old and not being so interested in bfing. I don't have any advice as such, but some of those people might see this.