Worried that 7 month old is not drinking enough milk

[Gangle]

Since weaning DS a month ago he has started drinking less and less milk during the day. He is exclusively breastfed so it's difficult to tell exactly how much but we think it isn't much more than 5 or 6 oz. He still has a morning feed and evening feed (though, again, doesn't seem to take loads then) and a couple of feeds during the night which I would like to cut out but he seems genuinely hungry so I always feed him. I read they are supposed to have no less than 1 pint of milk per day until 12 months. I've no way of knowing if DS is getting this or what I should do if he isn't! Also, going back to work next week and need to know how much milk I should leave for him. 6oz for all day seems like nothing! How does everyone else handle this?

are you offering breast feed before any solid foods? is he getting milk via foods too?

you can;t cut out the night feeds ,especially if he is reducing breastfeeds in the day. your supply has to be maintained somehow

thanks Lulumama. I am roughly following the schedule in Annabel Karmel so he has a feed first thing then breakfast around 10am after his nap; offer breast after breakfast around 11; lunch around 2 then breast at 3, so no, he has solids first then breast. I thought you were supposed to offer solids first then let them fill up on milk? Is this not the cas? Agree that I shouldn't cut the night feeds, even though exhausted.

not really getting milk via foods other than a tiny bit in baby cereal and cows milk in yoghurt.

milk first imo and ime.. at 7 months there is no need to be on 3 meals a day, milk should be the main source of nutrition, try offering less solids and always milk first

I have this issue too - my lo (nearly 7 months) was very keen to start solids and has very quickly increased the solids and reduced the milk feeds. I still offer milk first every time (7am, 11, 2-3, 6 and 10pm - no night feeds) but she has very little interest and typically drops off the breast to stare at the ceiling! I'm lucky if she feeds for 3 minutes. It's frustrating because I wanted to carry on feeding quite a bit longer but it seems to me as if she's telling me that this part of our life together will soon be over. I make up her porridge with formula so at least she gets some liquid that way and I offer water with her lunch. She seems well - bright eyed and bouncy - so I suppose I just have to go with it - after all you can't make a baby feed if she doesn't want to. It's strange though because I was expecting weaning to be a much slower process.

Oh dear Puddlet, is that what they're doing? Filling up on food instead of milk? I'd been encouraging DS to eat because I was concerned his hunger was causing him to wake in the night, which he still does despite eating a good amount of solids during the day. DS seems to drink a lot at night and guzzles water from a cup so think he is generally ok but still a bit worried. The advice is really conflicting!

We've had exactly the same problem with my DS (7mo) even though I always offer milk before solids. I've been trying as much as poss to put milk in his food too - weetabix is particularly good for soaking up milk - one weetabix to about 4 oz of milk

Having said that, the last day or so he has started to up his milk during the day again (after cutting out one nightfeed), while still having 3 meals, so hoping that continues

Hi Gangle and co. I am no expert by any means, but am bf my DS 11 months. He also loves solid foods and I kept being worried that he might/does not get enough milk. In addition I returned to work, but didn't express (basically it didn't work for me although I tried for months), so that during the day there were/are six or seven hours where he had no milk at all.
He has unlimited access in the afternoons, morning and evening, but I do not nurse him between midnight and 5am (long story, but he seems to wake every hour if I do).

In my experience, DS was/is able to adjust to this schedule. He is gaining weight, and has large amounts of milk when he is ready for it. He did not wean himself off as I had feared and is far from it. I actually offer BF right now five times a day, but twice he outright refuses. I was at a conference the other day and so did express. Normally I cannot get more than 1oz or so, so the fact that I got 6oz means, that he drinks at least 8oz, probably more, when he nurses. The other children his age I know drink 5 times a day 4-5oz, but I am pretty sure, he drinks at the 8oz three times day, so the same amount in less time. He also drinks very fast, I think a seven month old can drink 4-5 oz in 5min without any problem.

In short, I believe that my DS was able to adjust to my schedule, and the often-no-milk before solids. He also adjusted to being night-weaned (12am-5am) at seven months. However, I make sure that I give him ample opportunity in the evening and morning. I have also found that the he drinks most when he is sleepy or sleeping.

I certainly get often worried about things that sort themself out naturally, but milk before solids is certainly good advice.

Glimmer,that's really really helpful. I think DS also feeds very effectively, like 4 or 5 oz in 5 minutes because when I have expressed at a good time, e.g. in the morning, I have got about that amount and I think DS' guzzlng is even more effective! Putting lots of milk into Weebabix is also a great tip. We are actually doing sleep training at the moment and this week we are trying to space DS's nightly feeds so that they are further apart each night. We'd got into the situation where he would basically graze between 3 and 6am and was never hungry at 7am. The advice was to leave 3 hours between the feeds the first night, 3 1/4 the second, 3 1/2 the third. Although we had a bit of a disastrous night last night with DS awake between 3 and 6am, it does seem to be working and DS is hungrier during the day. Really hoping that when I go back to work on Monday he will take a good feed at 7am to set him up for the day and take the expressed milk I leave him. Decided to try to leave no less than 10oz a day to begin with but hoping he'll start to drink more once the sleep training kicks in. Really glad to hear that they do adapt so that if they prefer breastfeeding to the bottle then they take most of their milk this way in the morning, evening or night fees ( though trying to cut the latter out!)

sorry, FEEDS! Terrible typing!

DS's drinking during the day has gotten worse since I last posted. He only drank about 70ml all day todau whilst I was at work. He wanted to feed as soon as I got home at 6.30 and whilst hungry didn't seem starving. He did feed twice during the night - could that be why he isn't hungry during the day? We are trying to sleep train him but I have decided to go easy because it's my first week back at work and he isn't able to breast feed during the day (he has a feed around 6am when he wakes then I try to top him up before I leave at 8) then again at 6.30 when I get home) so the last thing I want to do is deprive him during the night. Could he be eating too much food? Have tried offering milk before food but not helping that much. Keep reading that babies must have 20oz of milk each day and worried that DS is falling way way short. Thinking of taking him to dr to get him checked out although he seems lively and well and not hungry in the least. Can anyone help?

You could try cutting out one of the night feeds and see what happens, but be in for a noisy one!! As long as he's having 3 or 4 feeds in 24 hrs he'll be getting enough, it's amazing how much milk they can take in a very short period of time. It just depends on whether you're happy giving him 2 of those feeds during the night.

Don't take him to the doc, they have absolutely no idea about breastfeeding unless it's a woman who has done it herself!!

This was my routine at approx 7 mths if it's any use!:
7am breastfeed
8am breakfast - weetabix or porridge, both with LOADS of milk!
10:30 ish breastfeed
12 noon lunch
2:30pm ish breastfeed
4:40pm tea
6:30pm breastfeed
11pm dream feed (woke them up to feed them before I went to bed)

They dropped the morning breastfeed by about 8 mths and the dreamfeed.

It's important to make tea quite a while before the bedtime b-feed to ensure a big feed to get them through the night if you don't do a dream feed.

thanks Kathryn. Are they supposed to drop the morning feed by 8 months? DS is a big boy (around 8.7 kilos) and 8 months on 28th so maybe he doesn't need it but I keep going by this dratted 20oz a day rule. He does have 3 to 4 feeds in 24 hours and a little bit whilst I'm at work. I don't mind feeding him at night though I wish he would go back to sleep after! I just worry that he doesn't like the bottle at all which he why he's on strike during the day. He also won't take formula so isn't even getting the extra iron and vits that would give (doesn't breast milk lack iron and other vitamins after 6 months?) If the dr really won't know anything then who else could I speak to (apart from MN!)

bump

anyone?

I do the same as Kathryn with my dd who is 6 1/2 months. She feeds 7am, 10ish, 2ish, 4ish and 6.45 but only ever for about 5 minutes (absolutely no idea how much she takes). She's on 3 meals a day but we're doing baby led weaning so she doesn't eat a massive amount of solid food yet. She's sitting porkily on the 91st centile as she has been since about 6 weeks old

Sorry to be so dim but I don't really understand your OP. You weaned him a month ago or you started weaning him? He can't be 'exclusively breastfed' if he has started on solids. Do you mean he doesn't get formula?
How can you possibly know how much he is getting from the breast? I suppose you would know if you expressed and measured it...
I think I was b-feeding about 8 times a day (24 hrs) at that age, probably more.

I never gave mine any milk from a bottle ever. I made sure they had other calcium-rich foods instead and b-fed to about 20 mo. After about a year they were having cows milk on porridge or in sauces etc but I think it's over-rated as a food (prepares to be flamed). They do eat tonnes of cheese and yoghurt tho...

Definately give breast first and food after. Give more importance to b-milk over any other food till they are reaching their 1st birthday. What I mean by this is that b-milk should, in your mind, be more important as a food than anything else, iyswim. Otherwise you will start to 'de-value' it.

Sorry, I sound a bit loony and pedantic, it's a while since I posted on this topic, my DDs are 2 and 5 now and I haven't b-fed since May

OP, I understand where you are coming from but it has always been my understanding that the "at least 20 oz" rule is a product of 50's and 60's ideas about bottlefeeding. FWIW the trend in the group of mums I spent time with when dd was under one was to bf more or less exclusively to 6 months. It seemed to be the case that few if any of the babies drank that much milk whether they were breast or formula fed once they were weaned. How often they fed varied a lot - some seemed to drop back to 2-3 feeds a day very quickly, others (like my dd) stayed on 4-6 feeds a day until 9 months. Not scientific but it did convince me that I should not be worryig too much.

As others have said, they get pretty efficient at feeding so it is hard to know how much they take - in the end I just decided that it was self-regulating and that given that they are eating unsalted food with some milk in it.

Good luck with your return to work.