HELP! 8 month old not feeding!

[alexsmum]

Can anyone tell me how many milk feeds my 8 month old should be having daily?
Past couple of days he has been point blank refusing breast feeds. I have tried giving him a bottle of formula and he's not keen on that either. I have managed to get him to take 2 proper feeds today but had to sit in a room completely alone and in silence and he still didn't feed for as long as I would have expected.
Getting really worried about this, can anyone please advise??

hello alexsmum
my ds2 is 8 months aswell and it seems to me that it is an age when their appetites change, for example I have increased his solid food consumption by 50% as he was demonstrating for more.
I BF only too and he takes one after breakfast at 930, one after lunch at 1.30 and he passes out on this one, and one quicky before tea at about 4.30 and then the big half hour one at 8pm before sleeping for the night, he also has at least 3 x 10 minute snacks during the night (I am trying to train him out of this which is why I'm still up, I'm waiting for the next demand and then going to rock him back to sleep without a feed).

I think your point about feeding him in a quiet 'boring' room is spot on, they are at the age when they long to get crawling and exlplore so removing them from stimuli is the only way, I always feed mine in the same place, on my bed because if I try in in the living room he just rubber necks and won't bother.

I think he may just be changing his eating habits and requirements so don't worry too much, but if he still hasn't fed for more than an hour in 48 then I would put out a call for tik tok or mears.

HTH

Suzy, I'm really worried now because hasn't been feeding anything like that amount for a while now!! He normally takes a really good long feed in bed at about 7 -7.30 then another in the afternoon and another in the evening before bed.Occasionally he wants more. he stopped night feeds REALLY early..like he was sleeping midnight till 7 at 2 weeks old.He's on the 91st centile for weight and height so must be getting enough.
I've been trying to get him to take little snacks through the day the past couple of days to up his intake. I'm worried in case my supply dries up.
Bloody kids eh, if its not one thing it's another.

My ds did same at 8 months and lived. Once he got going my supply came back.

alex first of all what your going through is perfectly normal around seven months they start going off milk because they are exploring new tastes with food and as far as there concerned milk never realy changes in flavour mine is eight months and on a very good day he can take up to thirty oz of milk and on a bad one were lucky if he will take five hows he eating in the way of food healy apitite you know fruit veg and plenty of dairy because if hes taking plenty of this then im sure he will be fine
plus my mother told me to my horror that i stopped taking milk at six months i just totaly refused it so she said fine and put me on cows milk with normal healthy foods and i just turned out fine just keep telling yourself what i keep telling myself kids turned out perfectly healy before they had al this so not to panic so much on ours
hth

he is eating his solids well.He has porridge for breakfast and something savoury and a pudding for lunch and again for dinner. Ds 2 likes to share his snacks with the baby so he is always being bunged bits of toast and fruit and stuff. He's on anti-biotics for a chest infection at the moment, this could be connected. Maybe cutting out the milk is his body's own way of reducing mucus production?? Just a thought.

thanks for replying so promptly guys..its good to be reassured

if he's had a chest infection the poor little thing probably ait feeling as hungry as normal so he's filling up on food for energy and thats it and from what i have read he's eating enogh to sustain him if you are still getting worried after the antibiotics have finished give him a week or so and take him down for a weighing to see that he's putting the weight on fine