Baby not taking milk all day!

[Takeabottle]

My son is 8 months, he’s always been a crap sleeper and has been breastfed. He has always point blank refused to take a bottle, i went back to work last week and everyone told me ‘when there’s no choice he will take it’
But that hasn’t been the case. He wakes at 7ish and won’t take a feed but has a big breakfast, goes to nursery straight after and takes around 2 ounces of formula in total all day if that! I pick him up at 5, he doesn’t take my milk till bedtime at 7 and then is up every 2 hours ish feeding.
I’m so exhausted! I can’t leave him to cry as it wakes my eldest. Please, there must be some way around this?
It doesn’t help that he hates purees and won’t be spoon fed so we have to do finger foods which inevitably end up on the floor.
The poor guy must be starving so I can’t just cut off his only food supply but there must be something I can do? To be honest, I’ve been trying to stop breastfeeding for months as I really do hate it but he screams which keeps the older kids up and it’s not fair on them.

Can anyone help? Any advise?

This is called reverse cycling and it is awful. He's making up for the shortfall of milk during the day overnight.
Will he take a sippy cup/doidy cup/syringe or even a spoon of formula? Does he take water out of any of these? Can you try purees in a pouch that he can squeeze in himself (maybe save that for just before bath time! You can buy reusable pouches to put your own purée in also)

Have you tried latex teats? My bottle refuser took them after trying every bottle on the market (but only ever 4oz then reverse cycled every night)

Can you co sleep as if he doesn't take milk from any other source the only thing you can do is ride it out and co sleeping may just get you enough sleep to function on?

In the words of my health visitor - you'll have a tough few weeks but as his food intake increases and he gets older milk becomes less important and the reverse cycling will stop. He should start dropping milk feeds from about 9mo depending on how much solid food he's taking in.

You have my every sympathy as this nearly killed me with my first - my second is also heading this way so I've just delayed my return to work for this reason. I hope something clicks for him and he either starts taking a bottle or ups his solid intake soon!

Following as my wee guy is the same well...a bit older but same circumstances

My son did this. I co-slept. I loved BF though so I was ok with co-sleeping, might not be for you if you want to stop.

Is his weight gain ok?

Thanks for the reply’s.
He won’t take a sippy cup but will take water from a doidy cup, will scream and sip it out if I put milk in it though, he won’t take spoon feed formula. I’ve mixed it with porridge and put it on toast but that’s as close as I get!
We’re using NUK latex at the moment, have spent a fortune on different bottles but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
We do co sleep as it’s the only way I can function.
I haven’t had him weighed in ages, I should probably do that.
Will try squeeze pouches he can do himself, thanks! I
How long did this last for you all?

If he's taking water, does it matter?

DD was, by 8 months, entirely on formula when she had milk, and otherwise on food, and I think 2oz was quite normal for her during the day. She was a crazy milk fiend at night, too. But it was what seemed to work for her and she had plenty of wet nappies in the day and put on weight perfectly fine.

She also hated purees, FWIW.

They do need a surprisingly small amount of food (or milk) at this age. Eg., less than one single scrambled egg is enough protein for the whole day. A large spoon of yoghurt is loads. Etc.

I know it doesn't solve the problem of the two-hourly feeds but, when we were being driven mad, I kept trying to figure out what would 'solve' it and never got an answer, and by analogy, what does seem clear is that your breastfed baby and my FF one were doing exactly the same things at the same age, so whatever else it is, I doubt the method of feeding is the issue.

Will he have a yogurt off a spoon? With fruit mixed in? Not ideal but he needs his calories.

Why not ideal? Yoghurt is a perfectly sensible thing to give an 8 month baby.

Because a baby's main intake of food should still be breast milk or formal before the age of one.

OP, lasted 3 months for me. He didn't start solids properly til 9/10 months. We stopped feeding at 17 months.

Formula not formal

ohdear - no, not necessarily. The NHS guidelines are here: www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/solid-foods-weaning/

As they say, Babies get most of the nutrients they need from breast milk or first infant formula until they are around 6 months old.

From 8 to 9 months your baby will gradually move towards eating 3 meals a day. It will be a mixture of soft finger foods, and mashed or chopped foods.

The OP's baby is 8 months old, so it is sensible for him to be having foods other than breastmilk.

Is it possible he doesn’t like the taste of formula? Could you express milk instead?

Actually @Takeabottle that is one thing my health visitor said - milk in food counts and suggested me making some milky (runny-ish) porridge for baby's supper.
For us the reverse cycling stopped at 9 months (so lasted 4-5 weeks) and something clicked at 10 months so I could stop feeding her and she'd take 7/8oz bottles instead.