Milk refusal since weaning

[SophieRules]

My baby is nearly 7 months and loves food but his interest in milk has dropped so dramatically that he’s refusing milk. I managed to get him to take a bit from a beaker but obviously that’s messy and a lot isn’t consumed. Are there any cups that mums would recommend or any other ideas? Even first thing in the morning when he must be really hungry he’s still refusing milk and just wants breakfast.

We have similar with breastfed 10 month old refusing a bottle at nursery. Do you make his breakfast with formula? That's at least some

Yes, thanks, that is a strategy I had to try today but it can’t be heated up so I think it will only work with weetabix? What other combos do you do?

What so you mean it can't be heated up? The milk is warm to start with. We make porridge with ours. Boiling water into formula then stir in readybrek or similar. Weetabix works as well to make a mush. I add a bit more water otherwise it sets solid and stir a spoon full of almond butter and some frozen raspberries.

I'm also trying to let him take his own bottle in the high chair

Please don't worry. Your job is to offer, but you cant force. Babies are really good at knowing what they need. Along with breakfast cereal, you can also use formula in mashed potato, for yorkshire pudding, making white sauce for fish pie, lasagne or macaroni cheese, pudding options like rice pudding or custard, sweetened with fruit rather than sugar. The list is endless. If you do find baby does continue significantly reducing formula, you can make up some of the reduction with other dairy products like yoghurt or cheese. I didn't formula feed, but I seem to remember formula is fortified with vit d (is that right?), so remember to start a vit d drop if necessary.

My DC2 was like this. He basically self-weaned from breastfeeding except for overnight by 9 months, and overnight by 10 months. Obviously I started offering formula til he was 1 but he hardly drank any. The only issue we had was really bad constipation from inadequate fluid intake from being 7 months old and it didn't fully resolve until he was almost 2.

Can it not be heated because it's for cmpa? Dd went off nutramigen on weaning and we had to swap to aptamil peptide

When you say he's refusing milk how much is he ACTUALLY taking?

At this age, the recommendation is to wean down to 500-600ml of milk a day. That's less than 3 full bottles. If he's taking around that, I wouldn't worry.

Thanks, yes he’s still taking more than that over 24 hours, it was just worrying as the reduction happened quite drastically and it concerned me that he wasn’t having it first thing in the morning when he would definitely be hungry. But he seems to be ok with telling it a few times during the day in between meals and once overnight.

My little one is a foodie and was a struggle to get the 500ml minimum into him.

I used to add formula to weetabix, ready brek, chia pudding, scrambled eggs, mashed avocado, mashed banana, mashed potatoes even if it was 1-2oz, was better than nothing.

As for cups we have used tommee tippee free-flow sippy cup, tum tum straw cup (favourite cup) and munchkin 360 (couldn’t get on with this).

Would also recommend that if he isn’t getting the minimum add an iron supplement and multivitamin to some yoghurt to ensure he’s getting what he needs.

Oh that's no problem at all in that case! If he's over the minimum, nothing to worry about. And even if he has the odd day a little under it, that would be fine too.