Mum on the edge! 9 month old won't drink any formula

[Hannahlou1994]

Hey!

Please help and put a mammas mind at rest. My 9 month old has just gone through 5 weeks of being poorly with one thing to the next, so naturally her milk intake has gone down while she's been under the weather. She's also had her 1st teeth cut through in the same 5 weeks.

My problem is, she's better again now and she still won't drink her milk. She's formula fed, aptamil, prior to being ill she was having 4 bottles a day, 7 oz per bottle but would usually consume 24oz ish over the day. She has 2 main meals at the moment, breakfast and tea, and a snack in the afternoon.

She cries and kicks her whole body away, and when I eventually get it into her mouth, she just chews the teat or actually pretends to suck , making the noises and motions with her mouth but not actually latching and when I pull the bottle away she has drank nothing. By the end of the day at the moment, I'm lucky if she's had 10oz and that's a 'good' day and even then she's faught to take it.

Here are the things I've tried (and failed with no diffrent outcome so far):

• Moved from stage 1 to stage 2 formula
• Changed teat size to a MAM 3 fast flow
• Tried to give it to her in so many diffrent kinds of cups (none make her want the milk but she'll drink water from them no problem)

-Put it into foods, which works but I can't do this for every bottle surely?

To try and minimise the impact of not having milk, I've started to give liquid multi vitamins and I've also increased her dairy intake throughout the day I.e more yoghurt, custard, rice pudding ect but I don't actually know how much of this kind of food is needed to replace the calcium she would get out of 24oz of formula?

I suppose I want to know, has anyone else experienced it? And if so what did you do? I feel like a total failure at this point, as I know the milk is the most important at this age and she just won't have it. I'm at a loss and I don't know what else to do next? Can she go without formula and be okay? Any advice massively appreciated

Thank you :)

Yep, just saying mine was similar around 10oz a day of milk. You've done the right things. I was quite relaxed (3rd child, I'd been breastfeeding so had no idea what she'd been having up to 9 months anyway when I switched over and she's much smaller than my others generally).

Only other things I'd try is a new formula and different temperatures. All 3 of mine hated aptamil. Mine liked cow&gate. Is she sick after having aptamil at all?

I'd also check weight is still following your centile, check with health visitor too. My thoughts were just she was self-weaning off of milk. I did what you did and increased other dairy and protein. Tbh, I think that made her have even less milk.

But yep, check with GP/hv if worried. I think some babies can develop lactose intolerance after illness, so maybe check that out. At 9 months I suspect this is just what some babies do as solids are more satisfying.