My dd (7m) is going off milk

[stantonjulie]

My dd is seems to be going off her milk feeds. She was fine up until this week, now it's a struggle to get her to drink. She seems to be taking solids ok but only takes a few ounces of milk. She's been on formula for about 2m (fussy breast feeder before) and I haven't changed anything. She can go through from 7pm until 7am, but last night I woke her at 11pm as worried she wasn't getting enough (she drank nearly 6oz) as she had woken at 4am the night before - what am I doing wrong? I'm trying the following strategy:

7.45am milk (7oz)
8.30am breakfast
11.45am lunch
12.15/30 milk (6oz)
3.30 milk (7oz)
5.30 tea
6.45 milk (7oz)

Today she has only taken 10oz so far (and I put 2oz left from this morning in her breakfast).

If she is being weaned she maybe be too full of the solids to fit the milk in? With both of mine, my aim was to get them drinking milk with breakfast and dinner only from a sucky cup and maybe a feed at bedtime only by 12 months. The feeds do naturally drop over time with solids increasing.

My little ones always had a dream feed at 11pm until about 9 months. I'd basically cut the 11pm feed out once they didn't really drink it when offered,

As your little one gets used to sucky cups more and more in the coming months, the bottle feeds will drop away, and they'll take fluids such as water in the cup during the day, that I usually leave on a coffee table for them to keep coming back to when they want a drink in between playing with their toys.

I think to be honest your daughter is taking what she needs milk wise, so I wouldn't worry, offer more calcium rich foods if concerned or cut the solids back a bit.

Does that make sense?

Thanks t&cp - i give her a cup containing water to go with her lunch and tea to get her used to drinking from one but she really only likes to chew the spout at the moment. Occasionally she will drink and swallow, but most of it dribbles down her chin.

Yesterday evening she drank all her milk at 7pm and then slept through until 7.15am and happily drank all her morning milk so maybe she was just having an off milk day. I'll keep an eye on it and experiment with giving her lunch milk in a cup so she just has a full afternoon milk drink from her bottle. A bit of trial and error!

We've only just dropped the 11pm feed because she has recently been so upset at being woken up from a deep sleep. Given the quantity and variety of solids she seems to consume I'm not sure that she needs it anymore.

It took ages to get my 2 used to sucky cups. Same as you offered it everyday. They got used to it in the end.

Sounds like things are all under control after all and you didn't need any suggestions Hope tonight goes well too x

The (BLW) advice I've read is to offer food around an hour after a milk feed until 1 year. So your breakfast routine looks right but maybe you could swap lunch & 12.15 milk around and then have tea 1hr after the 3.30 milk feed... obviously that depends on naps!

The other thing is, trust her. She'll let you know if she's hungry. My DS has dropped a feed and has gone from a >40oz a day milk fiend to a take-it-or-leave-it grazer. It may be the cold he has or maybe the epic growth spurt he's been on since before Christmas is finally over???

I have 4, the middle 2 were milk monsters but my youngest dropped an entire feed about ever 4 weeks from when I weaned her at 6 months by 11 months she only had her before bed feed and she wasn't bothered about that either.

My eldest is 13 so I can't remember so much and you weaned at 12 weeks then but I also remember that she gave up milk altogher around 11 months she just didn't want it anymore.

So in short all dc are differet and some of the just prefer solid food once they wean and they go off milk.