When do they drop bottles ?

[BackinBlack24]

This might be a silly question but my LO is 1 in a few days and still taking 4 bottles she eats very little though I do offer 3 meals a day she doesn’t have much interest in food and will only take a couple of tiny spoonfuls even if she hasn’t had a bottle there’s no interest in food . I’m not really sure what I do here do I keep giving formula or move to regular milk ? She’s always been a little behind regarding bottles and solids compared to other babies her age, but developmentally she’s perfect no concerns she’s just a petite little thing and comes to certain things in her own time. Do they naturally drop the bottles when they start eating more ? I’m afraid to remove any bottles as she genuinely just won’t eat enough to not be hungry .

It’s a bit chicken in egg.

2 of mine refused milk by 11 months the other 2 were addicts but they only had an evening bottle after a year

I think all babies are sooo different when it comes to this. My daughter is now nearly 14 months and was on 2 bottles by 12 months, but she is a big solids eater and was never that into milk. At 12 months we just cold turkeyed her onto a cup of milk for both those feeds, she complained the first day and then accepted it, although she quickly got bored of the evening one and stopped wanting it. I have found the less milk she is offered the more solids she will eat - as a PP says above it's chicken and egg. Could you try replacing a bottle with a snack to start off, like a yoghurt?

My daughter was 20 months before she ate enough to sustain herself from food alone. She was slow to wean and barely gained any weight between 7 and 13 months it was only after she started eating and having formula she started gaining weight.
From about 9 months she had breastfeed/formula around food.
We did breakfast, 5oz bottle before morning nap, lunch, 5oz bottle before afternoon nap, dinner, 8oz bottle before bed then 1-2 (3-5oz) bottles overnight.
She dropped her morning nap at 14 months and that bottle went then. Around 18 months we dropped her down to 1-3oz overnight and just once.
At 2 she went to 2 cups of oat milk during the day and a cup of oat milk during the day. She's 5 and still roughly on this. She's got a limited diet and she needs the calcium and iodine.

I agree with the others about the chicken and egg thing. I also found the switch to full fat cows milk at 12 months made a huuuuuge difference. She quickly dropped all but two half bottles/cups, eventually consolidating to one cup a day, which by 18 months she was pretty take it or leave it. She also slept better on cows milk.
Teeth also helped. I know they say their gums are hard and can manage to eat without all their teeth, but of course having teeth helps them with food. She’ll probably get more enjoyment from her food when it’s less effort to eat it.

I think our DS was about 1, but he was a massive eater (and still is!) and took to normal food pretty quickly at 6 months. I realised it was actually more my nerves about taking away the bottles, thinking it would unsettle him, rather than him actually needing them. I still remember the first night he didn't have a milk before bed, I swapped the milk out with water while he had his bedtime story and I was so so nervous, but he went to sleep perfectly normally and it ended up being a non event!
Maybe try it one bottle at a time, you may find she eats more solid food without the milk, or you can just reinstate the bottle if you feel she needs it.

I gently pushed the change from four to three bottles - just kept the baby busy when the midmorning bottle would happen and moved lunch earlier. For us, that improved baby's appetite for lunch.

I've also found that switching the two daytime bottles for the same amount of milk in a Munchkin 360 cup naturally reduced baby's milk intake. The baby no longer wants the afternoon cup of milk most days (12 months).

As pp has said, it's a bit chicken and egg. You might need to reduce milk intake to get your baby to eat more - or you might need to get them more interested in food first...