Boogie is a breastfed baby but he gets bottles of breastmilk at daycare. Lately it has been a downright battle to get this boy to drink his bottles at daycare. Meanwhile I am killing myself trying to pump 12 oz. each day to send with him to daycare.
I’ll show up at lunch and he will have had anywhere from 2 to 4 ounces of his morning 6 ounce bottle. Sometimes I can get him to take the rest but sometimes I can’t. Same thing goes for the afternoon bottle when I pick him up. He eats lots of solid food and it’s not just that he is full from that but rather that he prefers the solids to drinking milk from a bottle.
He still nurses fine but I’ve begun to realize that I don’t think he gets six ounces out of me at any one sitting either. When he was six months old, at his regular check up the doctor told me that he was growing fine and if he liked the food then not to sweat it if he reduced his milk intake. The problem then is that he wasn’t sleeping all that well either, so I took away his solid food lunch and he started drinking his milk more easily.
He’s almost nine months now and I am reluctant to take away the lunch again, especially since he seems to really love the solids. I have found conflicting information from various sources about just how much he should be drinking each day. Some are as little as 16 oz and as much as 32 oz. There is no way he drinks 32 oz in one day but I suspect that he does get at least 16.
I’ve made an appointment with my ped next week to do a weight check and have him tell me again that it is okay for Boogie to cut back his milk intake. Today when I dropped him off at daycare I sent one 4 oz. bottle and one 7 oz. bottle with instructions to drop the morning bottle if possible and give the 7 oz. in the afternoon. I sent the 4 oz. just in case he needed something this morning. We’ll see how that goes I guess.
When he moves to the new daycare next week, my plan is to go back to actually breastfeeding him during my lunch break but now I’m thinking that may not be necessary either if he drops that morning bottle. This sort of thing really, really makes me wish I could stay home with him. If I didn’t have those little ounce marks on the bottle and know that he’s not drinking as much as most other babies his age then I feel like I wouldn’t worry about it. The boobs don’t come with ounce marks after all.
September 13, 2007 at 4:17 pm |
Have you thought about putting it in a sippy cup? Maybe if he thinks of it as recreational instead of a meal, he’ll be more willing to take it? Also trying it cold may entice him.
A friend with a 10 month old isn’t nursing much anymore, and her son won’t take supplemental bottles either, so he’s getting like 10-12 ozs a day TOTAL. But a lot of solids. Her doc said it was “perfect.” So I’m thinking there’s a big variation of normal amounts of liquid.
As long as Booger’s gaining and having enough wet diapers, it’s probably ok. Can you nurse him at lunch?
Are you comfortable nursing him at the daycare place? Cause you could try to nurse when you get there, and then when you pick him up? Might cut down on your worries.
Good luck. I know this is really tough on you.
September 18, 2007 at 10:32 am |
[...] wanted nothing but the boob and then he cleaned them both out. I’m beginning to think this bottle strike seemed to really ramp up when I took away the poisonous Dr. Brown’s bottles. This kid never [...]
September 19, 2007 at 2:33 pm |
[...] the boy to the doc this morning to make sure he was growing fine and gaining weight despite the bottle strike. Interestingly enough he drank his entire 5 oz. bottle yesterday afternoon so I decided not to go [...]