Won't have morning bottle

[Deduct37]

My 4 and a half month old boy has never been very interested in his milk, he can take it or leave it. He currently has 4 bottles during the day and one early morning 3-4am). After this bottle he struggles to go back to sleep but that's a different story!!
He finally gets up for the day between 6 and 7. If offered milk he doesn't want it. He will maybe take an oz. We have tried leaving it until 7.30ish but it makes no difference. So we have started giving him porridge which he loves followed by a drink of milk. He usually has about 4oz used in his porridge and to drink. He was then having a 6 oz bottle at 10.30 ish but he is now not interested in that either. Another 6oz bottle at 2pm which he usually enjoys and a 6oz bottle at 6pm which he sometimes isn't interested in eithe. He then does a long stretch of sleep until 3-4 am where he has a 6oz bottle but sometimes only takes 4 out of it. He never cried for it.
The paediatric nurse suggested feeding him more regularly day and night. He's not interested in it at all. I feel that the 3am bottle is knocking him off his breakfast bottle but she disagrees. Said I should try to feed him every 2 hours day and night! Has anyone ever experienced this? I can't physically make him drink anymore when he's clearly not going to take it. Should I start trying to reduce the early morning feed? I just don't know

[SpeakNoWords]

How is his weight gain? Is he tracking a centile, or falling down to lower ones, or rising to higher ones?

At this age I wouldn't look to be actively reducing feeds, it should happen naturally if at all. I'm wondering why the paediatric nurse said to feed him 2 hourly, day and night - that seems like advice for poor weight gain. Was this recent advice?

[welshweasel]

So long as he's growing I wouldn't worry. We stopped feeding during the night (offered water and cuddle when he woke but started sleeping through fairly quickly) so he was hungry for his milk when he woke up. If the total amount of formula in a day drops below 15oz you should give him baby vitamins. We weaned at 5 months and everything became far less stressful!

[Heirhelp]

My daughter was like this from 3 months. As long as they are getting enough milk in a 24 hour period then don't worry. If he has plenty of wee and poo nappies and he is putting on weight it is all fine.

Why are you weaning him early? Unless you are weaning under the advice of a doctor he should not have any food until 6 months.

[Deduct37]

His weight gained dropped from between the 25th and 50th centile to the 9th shortly before Christmas. He is now following the lower curve so are no longer worried, but they have advised me to get him weighed frequently. Some days he was only having around 15oz and she suggested 27oz based on his weight, so she told me to wean him early because some babies won't naturally enjoy their milk so need to be introduced to solids slightly earlier. It just seems like he is enjoying one bottle at a more inconvenient time and it is affecting his morning bottle and I was looking to see if anyone had been in a similar situation and what had worked for them

[Heirhelp]

Ok early weaning makes sense but we aware that lots of the early food will be lower in calories than milk. Like I said my daughter often had as little as 1/2 oz for breakfast but she had lots of milk during the night.

[Heirhelp]

As what worked for us. I just feed her when she was hungry. Sorry that is probably not what you were looking for.

[Deduct37]

I understand that early weaning isn't as calorific as milk but when he's not having much of that either, he needs something else to avoid him dropping anymore centiles on his weight chart. He now doesn't wake for milk through the night, just in the early hours of morning and I feed him. But he sometimes only has 3 or 4 oz here aswell (sometimes 6) I let him have what he wants, but it's the fact he dies the want it I'm trying to get suggestions for!!

[ZZZZ1111]

I wouldn't cut out his night feed at this stage. He is still small to go 12 hours without milk. Remember it's his 'drink' as well as his 'food', and many adults like a sip of fluid during the night.

Not sure about the 730 feed, but introducing the porridge may well be affecting his 1030 feed as it may be keeping him full.

Have you tried offering milk little and often like the nurse suggested?

[Deduct37]

Tried little and often but he's not interested, never has been even before we introduced food (hence the early weaning). He just purses his lips and turns his head. Seems like there's not a lot else we can try