How to drop a milk feed?

[Jodierin25]

Hey there,

My little one is approaching 11 months and has around 4 bottles a day. Im a first time mum and have found the whole adjustment to motherhood rather difficult as I have anxiety. The thought about dropping a milk feed hadn’t occurred to me until today - and now it’s all I can think about.

My daughter has 3 meals a day and I always offer 5oz bottles but she rarely finishes them. I’ve always struggled with her appetite as she’s never really been fussed by milk or even solids. I take her to be weighed regularly and everything shows that she is healthy despite not being a huge eater/drinker (she is very petite and could easily fit in 6-9m clothes, even some 3-6m clothes fit her depending where they’re from).

Im just struggling with how to approach dropping a feed now that she is approaching 12 months. She will usually have a bottle around 4/5am, 9:30am, 1:30pm and then before bed at around 6:45/7pm. I usually give her dinner between 5-5:30pm and have noticed that she rarely drinks much of her bedtime bottle (usually around 3oz, rarely 4oz) and because of this, wakes out of hunger at around 4/5am since she’s slept a solid 10 hours. I’m just not sure how/what bottle I should drop - ideally it would be great if it could be the 4/5am one, however I can’t seem to get her to drink more milk before bed time (or even eat more at dinner time).

I should also add that she was a notorious cat napper (would never sleep past 30 minutes for her day time naps) however since starting nursery, these seem to have consolidated a bit more but still very hit and miss at times - a few friends have suggested putting her to bed later (in hope that her bedtime bottle will see her through until 6/7am) however if she wakes from a nap at 2:30pm, it’s a push to even get her to last until her usual 6:45/7pm bedtime.

Im really struggling with how to approach this and would greatly appreciate some help/advice x

My daughter is 10 months old and has been on 2 7oz bottles a day since 8 months. 8am and 7pm with 3 meals inbetween. Drop the ones during the day. It's easier than you think! My daughters both didn't have any bottles during the night from 10 weeks old so that was our first bottle to go. She really isn't bothered about the evening bottle probably has 5oz at most, such a waste lol.

Wow! That’s amazing!

I think due to my anxiety I’m more worried about it that my daughter will be haha! I’m just scared that because she’s not a big eater either, she’ll go hungry?😫

At this point I wish they just came with instructions!

She'll let you know if she's hungry 😊 drop one of the daytime ones and see if you can tweak the timings of the evening/morning bottle. Potentially even give her dinner earlier so she's more hungry when it comes to the night time bottle

For what it's worth, my son barely eats anything and is still a healthy weight and is full of beans. A big appetite can make it harder to maintain a healthy weight

What time does she go to bed and what time does she wake for the day (presuming she goes back to sleep after the 4/5am bottle)?

If it were me, I would work on trying to get rid of that 4/5am one first. Maybe by offering less gradually until she hopefully doesn't bother with it. You might need to try adjusting her nap/wake times to try to get her to consolidate that last chunk of sleep with her night sleep. What are her nap times?

If you want to try replacing one of the other bottles, you can try offering a snack in its place.

Would be working towards getting down to 2 bottles, 1 in the morning and 1 before bed, but don't stress about it!

She’s usually asleep by 7pm, 7:30pm at the latest. I put her down awake and she’ll roll around and self soothe herself to sleep. 9/10 she’ll go back to sleep after that 5am feed, occasionally she’s up for the day at 5:30/5:45am🤦🏻‍♀️

Her nap times are usually around 9:30/10am and then 1:30/2pm - depending on when she wakes for the day. She tends to be awake for 3.5 hours before beginning to get cranky.

All day it’s consumed me, but that mainly due to the anxiety. Once it’s in my mind I can’t let it go, so now I’m in panic mode. I know it’s not that big of a deal, but unfortunately my brain poisons any sense to think rationally/calmly when it comes to my daughter - forever thinking I’m doing the wrong thing.

Well you're definitely doing nothing wrong. If you take a bunch of 11 month olds, they'll all be on slightly different amounts of milk, solids, sleep etc! And vary a little in size. And some people keep bottles around much longer than others.

I'll post my schedule below as a ref but really I would try not to worry. Decide which bottle makes most sense to you to either try dropping/dropping some ozs and just see how it goes. Maybe she might start taking more solids if the milk is dropped a little too. She will work her way up on how much food she's taking over time too

7:00 wake and 6oz bottle
8:00 breakfast
10-11:30 nap 1
12:00 snack (this was a bottle previously)
13:15 lunch
14:45-16:15 nap 2
16:30 snack
18:00 dinner
18:30 6oz bottle
19:30 bed

Thank you so much for your advice, I really appreciate you taking the time to go through it all!

That routine would be amazing! It’s just so hard when she could have a 20/30 minute nap, or 1.5 hour nap. I can never be sure what she’ll end up having, especially when she’s at nursery. They don’t have sleep rooms so when she has her naps, some of the other children are pottering around the room and we all know what children are like, they’re not the quietest little creatures haha!

Saying this, she fell asleep last night at exactly 7pm and woke for some reason around 2:30/3am. I laid her back down, gave her a little back rub and got back into bed. She had a little cry and then self soothed herself back to sleep - I was expecting her to wake at her usual 4/5am for a bottle, but she’s just woken up at 6:45! Praying that this could be our new norm! I’m going to suggest to the nursery team that they put her down for her first nap at 10am and see if we can trial your little ones routine as that would work for us.

Thank you again for all your help, I appreciate it so much!

Oh brilliant, 6:45 is much better 😀 And no prob, my kids were all cat nappers as well (30-40 mins) from around the 4 month sleep regression up until they were down to 2 naps. I know it's really hard when they wont sleep longer for both their sake and yours! And not made any easier now by the noise at nursery but it sounds like she's getting there! If she's doing some longer naps then she's started to learn how to link her sleep cycles 😊

I think a consistent wake time and first nap time would be a really good idea. Would suggest a set bed time as well if at all possible. Sorry to go off on a bit of a tangent, as I know you only asked about how to drop a feed but it's just a lot easier to figure out/plan if you have a bit of a predicable routine to work with. I found the huckleberry guides really helpful for figuring out timings huckleberrycare.com/blog/11-month-old-sleep-schedule-and-development

One last thing - when mine were on 3/4 bottles, they often didn't finish them. But as I dropped bottles, I noticed they took more of their milk in their remaining bottles. So just to say that even if you're dropping a bottle, she may not end up taking in much less overall. I think from 10-12 months the guide is approx. 14 per day but that's just a rough guide!