Baby going off milk - I am a worried mum

[Jessicatmagnificat]

I've been weaning DD since she was 5.5 months old (she is nearly 8 months now), and it appears to be going well. She is enjoying trying lots of different foods and seems to be slowly starting to learn to feed herself. Alongside her 3 meals, she has sips of (very watered down) juice during the day, and 4 bottles of formula milk, given at approx 7am, 11.30am, 3pm and 7pm.

My concern is that over the last few days, she has only been drinking a third to a half of each of these bottles before losing interest. I estimate she is now taking approx 100mls at each feed, whereas before she would take 200+. Before, she would either drain each of these bottles, or at least finish about 80% of them. She now appears to lose interest, or get frustrated. I try winding her, but she's still not interested, and bats the bottle away crying. I'm still using Avent size 3 teats, and maybe it's time to start thinking about going up to size 4? I'm not giving her any more food than normal. DD is still hungry for her solids, and is eating these as normal.

I know that milk is supposed to be their main source of nutrition for the first year. Should my DD be drinking more? Should I cut back on her intake of solids to encourage her to drink more? I'm worried about dehydration.

She is well in herself, and sleeps approx 11 hours at night. Am I just being silly, or should I be concerned?

[witchandchips]

Don't worry, think its normal for babies to drop a milk feed at around this age. your dd is just drinking less per feed.
btw i would give water rather than weak juice as sugar in juice is not great for their teeth

[Jessicatmagnificat]

Thanks Witchandchips. I tried her with water, but she spits it out. I now have the cunning plan of diluting her juice more and more each day by a little bit till we arrive at water!

Do you think I should drop a bottle then?

[witchandchips]

don't think it matters really, some think that having milk to close to lunch reduces absobtion of iron or something but . I would just see how it goes.. Looks like she is doing a good job of self regulatiing already.