Refusing milk

[Steph2468]

Hi,

My baby boy is 5months old & I started weaning him just after 4months... He's now on breakfast, lunch & dinner. Not large amounts obviously but this last week he has started refusing his bottles! Even if I try him with a bottle before his solids he still only takes roughly 2-3oz then spits it out & turns his head! I'm lucky if he takes 2 full bottles a day. ... Do u think I need to move on to the follow on milk? Or is this a normal process of weaning?

Any tips, advise, suggestions welcome ?

Oh and a full bottle for him would be 6oz

No one needs to move onto follow on milk. It's unnecessary for babies, and the NHS recommend using first milk until 12 months then moving to whole cow's milk. I also don't see how it would help in this situation.

Perhaps teething is causing an issue with bottles? I didn't use formula so I'm not sure, but I think 12 oz is quite a lot less than recommended at that age. Dropping feeds this young is not a normal part of weaning, as their nutrition should still be coming from milk at this age.

Could you try dropping one meal and see if that has an effect? Babies should be on three meals a day by around 8 to 9 months, so you have plenty of time to build up to it.

You definitely need to prioritise the milk at this age as he won't be on a wide enough range of solids or be able to digest and absorb it properly for the solids to replace milk. Always offer before solids rather than straight after, at least until after 6 months when he's on a wider variety of food. And I would cut back to one or two meals as three is a lot at that age.

Failing that, I agree that it could be teething as the bottle can be painful to suck if their gums are sore.

Is he taking pouches? I got so desperate when dd was ill with d&v and refusing milkI filled up pouches with milk.

I didn't quite get to the stage of making formula milkshakes but it was on my ways to avoid hospital list...