Milk Refusal and Night Wakes

[Michelle1991]

Hi all. This is a bit of a long one my apologies, but really struggling. My little boy is nearly 9 months old. Since 6 months old his sleep hasn't been great - few night wakes and not settling back in cot from 4am so has to be bought into bed (safely). I could just about deal with this, however he since increasing solids, it's just getting worse.
He has 3 meals a day but at the moment doesn't eat a huge amount at each meal I don't think. However he is now refusing to drink much or any milk at all during the day. I've tried a variety of temps, bottle teats, different environments, before food, after food etc and nothing is working. However he then is waking up 2-3 times overnight for a bottle and is drinking around 150ml each time so is hungry. He also wakes up other times between that for a quick re settle.
He has 2 naps a day totalling 2-3 hours, and goes down in his cot a little drowsy but is awake and does put himself to sleep.
Has anyone experienced this, and is it just a phase I need to get through? He's never STTN so I'm struggling now!
In the last week he has learnt to crawl and pull himself up too

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long read!

I have a four month old waking a lot at the moment but for different reasons so solidarity.

Is he distracted in the day? Can you feed him when he is drowsy before a nap/just as he wakes in a really calm and quiet environment?

Is there a food that maybe he is intolerant to? E.g. egg/wheat etc? That could cause him discomfort in the daytime and then he will drink milk at night when sleepy as he's less aware?

When they learn new skills they wake more in my experience with my first.

It's really tough but also really really normal that babies wake throughout the night. So try not to beat yourself up about it.

Writing a food and milk diary can be helpful to pin point anything that might explain the reasons for the feeding difficulties. I have a lot of issues with my 5month old with bottle refusal due to what I think is a CMPA along with reflux. He drinks only small amounts of prescription milk often but really has no consistency, I started on solids (baby rice) 2 weeks ago and am taking weaning super slowly to ensure that the foods I give him are not aggravating his reflux. When his reflux is playing up his bottle feeding is really bad he will drink an oz and then start crying and refusing so we have to try again later. It will normal settle down after a few days but sometimes takes 2 weeks. I’m sure things will get better for you but try and work out if it’s any food you are giving him.

Sounds like you're going through the 9 month sleep regression as he's learning a new skill and he might just get back on track by himself very quickly.

It also sounds as though he could be reverse cycling. The tips are aimed at BFers but there's no reason that you can't adapt them so that he's taking his milk during the day instead of at night