advice needed

[Jax Tellers Old Lady]

hello there i have a happy and healthy 8 month old boy. up until recently he was having 3-4 bottles a day ranging from 200 - 250mls per feed and also 3 solid meals a day he now will only have his morning and bed time bottle i dont know what to do i keep making them and he keeps refusing them what can i do? has anyone else had this problem i dont want to keep wasting formula if hes not going to drink it. I give him lots of water in between meals now so i am guessing he just inst interested and that maybe he doesnt need them any more what do you think??????

[the_queen]

I think your instincts are spot on :thumbsup:
Don't keep making up bottles just to tip them down the sink, you may as well throw money in the bin. Vallerie stopped having her bottles completely at 9 months old, and our GP said that as long as she was eating well, generally healthy, and still weeing/pooing normally, then don't worry about it. The main thing is to make sure your child is getting adequate nutrition - before they are eating very much, it mostly comes from breastmilk or formula. But if he's getting enough nutrition from food, then don't stress about giving him less formula. If he's still having 2 a day, that's fine!
Maybe you could try making fruit smoothies with the made-up formula for during the day? He might like a "milkshake" with his lunch :D

[jessgray]

my DS does the same thing :) i think babies just know what they need. i was told by my MCHN a while ago as long as DS gets 700-900ml of milk a day i dont need to worry about his milk intake.

[tammac77]

hi,

my son is only 4 months old but already having two solid meals a day plus about 700mls formula a day.

He is big, 7kgs and 70 cm at 4 month vaccination and when he was 3 months old he was already showing interest in solids and started rejecting his bottle. It got to the point where after having him take up to 900ml a day he was only having 500ml. His nappies were getting drier and he got some constipation due to lack of fluids. Though being told again and again don't start solids until at least 4 months and preferably 6 months, I didn't know what else to do so I gave him baby rice. He took to it like a duck to water and once on solids actually increased his bottle feeds back up to 700mls.

I've read that up until six months babies need at around 720mls a day as well as their solids - probably more than that if they haven't started solids. Once they are having solids regularly they need around 600 mls a day until 12 months old.

Lately, Dexter hasn't been finishing feeds either. To make sure he gets enough I make smaller feeds and feed him more often. There is no definite routine, sometimes he'll have 200mls other times he'll only have 120mls. I just try to calculate how long since a feed, how many feeds left in the day and how hungry does he appear to be. Another trick to not waste formula is to make a small feed up and if he's still hungry (ie finishes it quickly and looking for more) I make up another 50ml. In other words, do whatever works! Good luck :thumbsup:

[jessgray]

you do what i did with my DS tammac77 when i started him on solids. i did the same thing with smaller feeds and it worked for us :)