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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

My nearly 7 month old is refusing most milk feeds!

7 replies

Willsmum79 · 21/07/2012 16:41

My LO is 29 weeks old (7 months old in 9 days) and refusing most of his milk. By 4pm, he has had only 5oz from his 7am bottle. Before that, 5oz at 1am!
He was weaned at 21 weeks on fruit and vegetables and when he turned 26 weeks old we introduced the third meal and other food stuff. His milk and solids were fine. In fact, nothing has changed since then! A typical day of solids looks like this:
8am a pot of fruit or an Ella's brekkie pouch. (He has begun to refuse his porridge and museli)
midday (or after nap, whichever is first) he has an Ella's pouch
4pm another fruit pot/pouch or a tablespoon of baby rice with fruit in it.
He is offered 8oz bottles at 7am, 3pm and 7pm and a 4oz bottle at 11am. He takes 5oz at 7am, refuses 11am, is now refusing 3pm and takes 6-8oz at 7pm and will wake for a night feed. He takes whatever I give him, be that 5oz or 8oz but whatever he takes during the night, his morning feed is still the same!
I'm more concerned that he isn't getting enough fluid because he is offered water but only takes 1oz and only takes it from a doidy cup as all other beakers seem to flumix him - he chews the teat rather than suck and a free-flow just aggrevates him and thus won't drink from it.
His weight gain was fine but I think that was more from the solids.
What am I doing wrong???

OP posts:
JiltedJohnsJulie · 21/07/2012 17:48

Don't think you are necessarily doing anything wrong, so don't panic. How much formula would you say he takes in an average 24 hours?

Willsmum79 · 21/07/2012 18:56

In an average 24 hours (including the night feed) he can have anywhere between 18 and 22oz. Lately this has been reducing from an average of 22-28oz. I know 20oz is the minimum but I am concerned that he is still having a night feed as it seems he is relying on milk between 7pm and 7am rather than the other way round!

Today has looked like this:
7am 5oz milk
8:30am (after nap) fruit pot (50g)
11am refused 5oz bottle
12:30pm Ella's chicken casserole (after nap) He ate 2/3 of it.
3pm refused 8oz bottle
5pm a little stars yoghurt pot followed by about 1oz of water
6:45pm 5oz milk
6:50pm Bed

He went to bed on 10oz.

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JiltedJohnsJulie · 22/07/2012 14:01

Think he is getting enough milk but he is doing what is called reversed cycling, where he gets his calories at night. However, having night feeds at this age is normal and half of all babies still wake at 12 months no matter how they are fed or parented.

If it was me and he had refused the 11am bottle, I would have offered it again an hour later and skipped lunch. He could always have a little lunch after his bottle if he wanted. Again if he had refused his 3pm bottle then offer it again at 4pm.

MamaBear17 · 23/07/2012 19:54

My dd did the same. Offer him water from a bottle - as long as it isnt juice it will be fine in regards to his teeth. Have you tried switching to a faster flowing teat? He might be frustrated at having to suck really hard. I found switching the teats and to the follow on milk helped too. She seemed to prefer it xx

JiltedJohnsJulie · 24/07/2012 07:05

Wills you might want to read this study before decidng to switch to follow on.

How did you get on yesterday?

Willsmum79 · 25/07/2012 05:52

Hi - thanks for the advice. I haven't read the study yet JiltedJohnsJulie.

Yesterday was much better. It looked like this:
6:30am 7oz bottle
7:15am 2/3 of a Ella's banana brekkie pouch
12:30pm 90g fruit pouch and a rusk. Water offered, not taken, just played with it.
3pm 6oz bottle
5pm Chicken and Vegetable dinner (Heinz powder which he LOVES)
7PM 4oz bottle

He woke at midnight. I thought bottle as usual but he took 1oz and went back to sleep! It's 5:53am and he is still there!!!

He is already on the fast flow teat.

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Willsmum79 · 25/07/2012 05:59

Just read it. Although I take what I read with a pinch of salt (let's face it - if we believed EVERYTHING we read and followed the advice to the letter, we'd all end up committing suicide!) it proved interesting.

I'm not giving him follow on because it has more iron in it - it's simply is because of financial reasons (i.e. tesco clubcard exchange - you can get free milk!).

I'm not overly convinced of it wither (it does state own personal opinions before reading it) and the study was done on such a small scale (473 children).

I may reconsider but I don't make rash decisions on reading the first thing that is presented to me. But thanks for sharing it though.

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