8 months old - refusing his bedtime bottle?

[Loopy lotti]

OK, I spend my entire time worrying if I’m weaning correctly, I wanted to follow pure BLW but I work full time and as much as I have an amazing Nanny I don’t want to burden her with having to essentially manage it. So, at 8 months old he has 2 solid meals a day, breakfast of fruit / yoghurt / porridge / Weetabix etc at around 8am then afternoon lunch around 3 to 4pm (the meals are getting lumpier & he does have some finger food so not all is lost on the BLW front!). All his meals are freshly prepared, pretty much most veg & fruit and in the last month fish or chicken also). He suffers with constipation so I’m sadly holding off on too much starch or anything that's likely to clog him up

My dilemma is that he’s started to refuse his bedtime bottle. A few weeks back he was still on 5 bottles a day, all 180ml apart from his bedtime one around 6:30pm that was 210 ml. Over the weeks he’s naturally dropped a bottle feed which makes sense as he’s having 2 solid meals a day. But just this past 10 days or so he’s started to refuse his bedtime bottle.

From 210 ml the most I’ve got down him recently is 120 ml….but most nights it’s down to 60 or 80 ml

99.9% of the time I put him to bed and it’s like turning out a light switch (we’re v lucky he’s always been a good sleeper). He then wakes normally once in the night anywhere between 2 and 4am, where we ‘reset’ him (after playing paper scissors stones with my hubby in bed to decide which one of us is getting up to 'reset the baby'). Reset simply consists of pulling him down his cot so his head isn’t jammed against the headboard (a position he seems to get himself into each night ) and replace his dummy. We don’t pick him up nor offer him any feed and 99.9% of the time he goes back to sleep (after a little chat with his teddy’s) within half hour. He then he wakes around 6am and guzzles down his first 180 ml bottle.

There’s nothing wrong with him and he’s a very happy bouncing boy, but in my mind the bedtime bottle is really important so the fact he’s taking just half of it (on a good day) worries me. I’ve tried bringing his afternoon solid food earlier, we’re at around 3pm now, but it hasn’t made any difference to him taking more of his bedtime bottle this eve at 6pm.

Should I be worried? Any advice from you lovely Mums out there?

I will take him to his paediatrician for a check but was hoping to hang out till his official 9 month check so just wondering if anyone else has any advice or similar stories?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom.

LLx

 

[Loopy lotti]

PS: sorry the above was long, thank you for reading if you've got this far!

xxxx

 

[ButterCup17]

Mine did the same. I think they r just weaning themselves. I would go with his flow, if he seems fine with it then I'm sure he is I think by that age our Dr recommended 3 meals meals a day plus a snack tho, maybe offer more solids

 

[MindUtopia]

If he doesn't seem bothered and isn't crying and hungry during the night, then I wouldn't be too concerned. If you really want to make sure he's having milk before bed, you might just need to think a bit more about what his day's are like? Is there a reason he doesn't eat lunch at lunchtime, like 12? You said you moved lunch til 3, but what if you made it even earlier? And when are his other bottles during the day? At 8 months, my daughter was still having probably 4 bottles during the day, plus one during the night, and 3 meals (but BLW so the quantity wasn't massive yet). If he's having a solid meal plus a couple milk feeds in the afternoon, it's possible he might just not be hungry again by bedtime. But if he's happy to settle to sleep and doesn't wake for a feed during the night, then I would probably keep doing what you're doing. More than likely, as his calorie needs increase as he's becoming more mobile, he'll go back to wanting that extra feed or drop one during the day in place of it.

 

[Loopy lotti]

Thanks Ladies, both makes absolute sense.

The last couple of days I've increased his first bottle of the day (he always wakes around 6am hungry) from 180 ml to 210 ml which he guzzles down. He's not waking during the night and seems happy enough when he goes down at 7pm plus he's on the 90th percentile for his weight (and height), so, really, I should stop being such a worry wart ;-)

Thanks again for the input ladies

PS: I read somewhere that during weaning & up to a year old they need between 500 & 600 ml which he's regularly getting, so again I should probably take of the worry hat ;-) x