I thought I wanted to nurse Alexandra for a year and then switch her directly to milk in a sippy cup, thus skipping the formula and bottle all together. Well, I'm having second thougths on that. I want to continue to give her some breast milk until atleast a year but I am feeling like such a prisoner and am ready for her to take a bottle. Until last week, my girl had NEVER taken a bottle. Utter refusal. And so, I have NEVER been away from her for longer than 3 hours when I went to get my hair done ONCE. Other than that it has been max 2 hours apart. In 9 months. That's a long time. Now, that she is crawling (yes...at 8.5 months that girl was off to the races!), sitting in my lap is SO. NOT. FUN! She is squirming and not interested in nursing. But the problem is that she is not interested in eating solid food either. Or bottles. In the past week I have been trying to get her to take breast milk or formula from a bottle once a day. I have some success when she is strapped in her carseat and I sit in the back with her. Or when she is really sleepy, but then she does this weird nursing/sipping the bottle thing. Probably not good. I should just put my boob away! I also decided to cut out night feedings completely since she was not eating during the day. That has been surprisingly successful and this weekend she actually slept from 8 pm to 8am without waking! (actually... not entirely true...when I cut out night feeds I introduced a dream feed around 1130pm so that if she wakes at night I can rest easy knowing that her tummy is full, she doesnt' wake for the dream feed though and I wish I had started that months ago!) So, this is major progress from the multiple wakings to nurse I was having just 2 weeks ago!
Most of this post is just my babbling, but I wan to know from others who have weaned, are weaning...how do you do it ? Did you cut out one feed and replace it with a bottle? Which feed is the best/easiest one to cut out? Cold turkey? Easier for you or dad to give bottle? How do you know how many ounces to give? She doesn't seem to ever want more than 2 or 3 ounces and I read about babies wanting 8 ounce bottles! Also, would love to hear how much solid food other babies are eating. she was eating a ton! but when she started crawling and got her first tooth all in the same week her appetite disappeared. Now we are lucky if we can get her to eat a couple cubes of squash and a butt ton of cheerios a day. She is obsessed with cheerios. That is one food she will always eat!
anyways, would love any advice! Hope you all had a great long weekend!
LTB
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We stopped breastfeeding at 3 months because once Rylin did take a bottle (from my sister after a month of trying) she wanted nothing to do with the boob. It took putting her on a schedule to get her to drink more than 3 oz at a time & she now eats 6-8 oz every 4 hrs. She also goes on food strike every time a new tooth comes through with the exception of puffs & lil crunchies. We will have to try cherios! Lol
ReplyDeleteTruitt still will not take a bottle and he's way too busy to nurse during the day and if he does it's for 5min or less (unless in the carseat, yay saggy big boobs!, or going down for a nap) but he's up 3-5 times a night to nurse. Anyway, he hasn't been big on solids much either-ever. We have finally gotten in a decent routine where he eats 1oz homemade fruit puree mixed with about 2tbsp of oatmeal for breakfast, 2oz fruit puree mixed with 2tbsp goats milk yogurt and 1 oz of veggie for lunch and then 3oz of veggie for supper. I make 1oz extra each time but he will never finish it. He also eats a ton of puffs at each meal and will eat whatever fresh fruit I'm eating for through the day. I know that most drs advise that up until after a year (once off BM or formula) food is just fun so not to worry too much!
ReplyDeleteI've also read that when they're near milestones that they aren't too fond of eating so hang in there momma!
Hopefully you get some great advice, cause I'm kind of in the same position you are, except that my little one is a year. She would MUCH rather nurse than eat solids, and she doesn't take a bottle or a sippy. YIKES!
ReplyDeletewe haven't started weaning and clara's never had formula, so can't help you with that part. congrats on an amazing job with all the nursing you have done!!! I can't IMAGINE we would have made it this long if she hadn't taken bottles. I'm sure you've tried everything and she's probably in sippys now - but Clara has loved the Born Free bottles. They are the only kind we've given her and she switches effortlessly from bottle to breast.
ReplyDeleteas far as food: of course we're doing BLW so keep in mind the majority ends up on the floor- today she "had" a blueberry breakfast cookie and a piece of frittata for breakfast, a piece of homemade pizza for lunch, yogurt and puffs for dinner. and she's nursing/having a bottle 6x a day, 4-6 ounces. hope that helps :-)
I don't have any helpful advice since my little brat wouldn't take the breast, only the bottle, so my weaning was just me and the pump breaking up.
ReplyDeletePuffs are a good finger food and my kid really liked those pouches of baby food at that age. She didn't like the spoon, but she was OK with sipping from a pouch.
Good luck!
This was posted yesterday on a private fb breastfeeding group:
ReplyDeleteMommy #1- Help! I think my 10 month old is done nursing. He is not really interested in nursing or bottles right now, he just wants to eat "real food" and play. He's one of those 100mph types, so I think he just doesn't want to sit still for any length of time. Lately, the only nursing I can really count on is first thing in the morning, for the past week or so he has refused to nurse a lot. He is also not wanting to take a bottle while I'm at work. We're going to start giving him pumped milk in a sippy during meals instead of water, but pumping doesn't do much for my supply. I tried lots of different things to increase my supply when he was younger, the only thing that helped was Fenugreek, and it didn't make that much difference. Any suggestions
Response #1-Its very unlikely for a child who's less than a year old to self-wean. Its most likely a nursing strike. Keep offering at every opportunity and stick with it HEre's a great article about how to tell and how to get thru :) http://thebreastfeedingblog.com/2011/weaning-or-nursing-strike/ Hope that Helps :)
Response #2- It's most likely a phase. My daughter went thru that at around 9-10 months. Getting her to nurse was literally a fight. The only thing that worked for me was to only nurse her when she was tired. Like right when she woke up and before and a...fter naps. It was definitely a challenge, but luckily for us it was short lived. Now she's 12.5 months and wants to nurse 5-6 times a day. And she will nurse anytime, anywhere. Lol. Hope this helps. Sorry you're having a hard time.
I hope that helps you some!!!
As you know I never breastfed Alex. Well, only for the first week and then he decided he hated it. As for what he eats now he takes a 6oz bottle with every 4oz solid food he eats which is breakfast, lunch and dinner and an 8oz bottle in between lunch and dinner. He has STTN since he was 2 1/2 months old. I doubt this will help you at all since I never breast fed but that's what we do. Crossing my fingers that she starts to take to the bottle more and you get your body back soon. I can't imagine how hard but also rewarding breastfeeding is. A lot of the mom's in my due date group on a forum I'm on t hat breastfeed are having the same issue with a baby that's hungry but also more interested in going rather than eating.
ReplyDeleteSaw your comment on my blog. No problem for the help! I hope your upcoming consultation goes well and you're back on the band wagon soon :) As for spacing out feedings, I think that's a great idea if you're not waiting a while for Alexandra to get hungry enough. Alex's feedings are all 3 hours apart from the time he finishes his last feeding. It usually works out pretty well no matter what time he wakes up in the morning. Hope you have more luck with the new schedule!
ReplyDeletePenelope finally takes a bottle now (with pumped breastmilk), but it took awhile. Her dad feeds her while I'm at work. I am not sure exactly how he finally managed it, but I think it just got to the point where she was hungry enough. The size of the nipple hole was key, as well. We were using a nipple with a really small hole, and she couldn't get the milk out of it. Now we have one that is slightly faster than 1 drip per second, and it works really well. She does make kind of a mess, but most of it goes down her throat. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAmelia cut the evening bottle out on her own she didn't breastfed very long and even then she took breastmilk in a bottle. So it was easy to gague how much she was drinking - and she would let us know when she wanted more. She got up to 8oz bottles around the 5-6 month mark and has since decreased down to 6oz bottles since she's getting more solid food.
ReplyDeleteAs for solids, she didn't like the purees very long and so got small pieces of table food (BLW) around 6 months. I think now at 10 months, she's eating a small plate of food (like the toddler plates size) of whatever it is we made for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. GL!