baby not drinking as much milk from bottle these days

waitingForTej · Apr 23, 2010

dear friends,

My baby is 5.5 months old and was consistently drinking a certain amount of milk over the past few months in increasing quantities over weeks.
During the past 1-2 weeks, quantifying in ounces, I've noticed that he has reduced his consumption by around 20-25%.

A little bit about our background- I am a working mom and pump milk for his intake when i'm not around. Hence he's been on breastmilk exclusively till now. Until about 2 weeks ago, my mom was here and taking care of him (since his birth). After she left, my MIL has been his caregiver. When I'm at home, I directly breastfeed him during the evenings, nights and weekends. He drinks fine when I feed him and falls asleep at the end of the feed. On the other hand, he's very distracted when being fed with a bottle. Due to this distraction, he doesn't sleep much during the day. This results in him making a lot of screaming noises ultimately leading him to be cranky. He takes a quick half an hour nap here and there (maybe twice between 9am-7pm when I get back). So here are my questions:

1. What can I do to make sure he is drinking well like before without getting distracted much
2. How can we encourage him to nap more and feel rested.
3. What to do about the ear piercing loud screaming....
4. How can I politely give any useful tips to my MIL so she can feed him smoothly to completion.

Your help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Tej

Dilchahtahai · Apr 24, 2010

Hi WFT,
Congratulations on your baby and Bravo ! for being a working and pumping mom.. At 5 months, babies normally start to hear and see better and so they are very distracted. You need to take them to some isolated place to feed them sometimes ( So, maybe if MIL is feeding him in front of TV or on tarrace, she needs to take him to a room with not much lights and maybe feed him there)
Not taking naps is not good. Babies this age need to sleep 14-15 hours a day. Luckily this is the time you can start setting a routine for him. This would help you and everyone in the house (including your baby). You said in ur post that the baby falls asleep while nursing. Thats the problem !!! He is in the habit of having your breast as a crutch to fall asleep.
When you are not there he is looking for that and when he does not get that, he is angry and frustrated. Look at it from his point of view.. He is tired, he wants to sleep but he does not have his crutch.
That does not mean you have to stop nursing him. Just dont let him fall asleep on ur breast (I know it s very hard)
Maybe for some days nurse him a little and then have hubby or MIL give him a bottle of pumped milk while you pump to maintain ur supply. Idea is to feed him, then change him, sing to him and then put him to bed drowsy (maybe some soft music). That way, he learns that there is a routine to fall asleep and not just by being at your breast. It would be hard to implement but if you keep at it, I think in 3-4 days he would come around.
Also, since he is 5 MO, have u thought about giving him some solids before he goes to sleep? That would help him stay sleep longer. If you are not already doing it, maybe start him on solids (once a day and then gradually twice and thrice).
He may be getting bored of milk and may like solids. So a routine might be, nurse, bottle (since he still needs to drink BM) and then a little bit of solids, then change, sing, put to bed with music and left alone..
I had my mom looking after DS for 3 MO and that went fine. Then I had a baby sitter (who was like MIL) and things went down hill. She just blamed DS for not eating and not sleeping and was not trying hard enough.
Finally we had to force a sschedule and thatworked.
I nursed and pumped till DS was 18.. Hang in there, it is not a smooth road.
Hope above tips help. This is the time u inculcate good habits in your son (like sleep schedule, nap schedule etc.) Once he getes used to schedule at night, he would be easy to understand the same schedule at nap and will sleep..
Hope this helps

mridusudha · Apr 24, 2010

Totally agree with every word previous poster posted. So true to have a routine. Babies love routine. THe best routine is an EASY routine which stands for EAT, ACTIVITY(Play) and SLEEP...It is important to create a routine. Sleep is very important for babies. If you improve his sleep schedule, then automatically he will eat better and everything will fall into place.

I am attaching a file about "How to Teach a baby to sleep". I took lot of tips from this and it helped me a lot. DS's sleep improved a lot and even his eating improved.

Hope it helps you.

Pavarun · Apr 26, 2010

Do you think this has anything to do with the change in caregiver (mom to MIL)? I'm wondering if she is following a different routine from your mom or he is reacting to that? Babies sometimes take a little while to get adjusted to a new caregiver. I would say ask your mom as to whatever schedule or routine she was following and pass that on to MIL.

The crankiness may be directly related to him not taking naps well. Hope things settle down soon for you.

mridusudha · Apr 27, 2010

BTW, forgot to mention

Your LO might be teething? The screams may be because of that! Did you check his gums?

My DS got 2 teeth @ 5 months and he screamed and screamed and screamed till ETERNITY!

swaran · Apr 27, 2010

Hi Tej

Along with all the wonderful suggestions mentioned by other ladies here....i would also like to add few points

* Please ask your mother-in-law to feed your baby in a little darker place...becoz ur LO would like to explore more things and get distracted seeing lot of new things that are around him.

*Also ask ur MIL to make ur LO sleep in a quieter place .
Reason same as above....distraction due to TV or any other noice could distract the baby from sleep.

waitingForTej · Jun 3, 2010

Thanks ladies for all your responses. I took a month to apply a lot of your advices.

@dilchahtahai- loved the idea of setting a routine. I did start solids recently with a little bit of rice cereal for lunch and some
gerber purees as a snack in the evening. And as soon as I go home at 7pm, I've made it a practice for him to realize it's his bedtime.
Also Thanks for the appreciation at the beginning of your post. Even though I realize I'm not moving mountains or anything, but to hear those good words really helps. Kudos to you for working and breastfeeding till 18 months.
I've asked my MIL to either talk to him or show him a toy to focus on if he gets distracted or bored while drinking milk. Also she takes him to the bedroom to feed him where there are fewer distractions

@mridhusudha- Thanks dear for that attachment. Few months ago I noticed that you shared this with us. I wondered why anyone would be so bothered about baby's sleeping... now I am dealing with it myself! The most useful tip I liked was counting backwards from baby's waking time in the morning
and making him go to bed 10-12 hours prior to that. My baby is wide away at 6am, so I start winding down his day start 7:30pm and he ultimately goes down by 8pm for the day.
And yeah his sleep is directly related to how much he drinks. He has one teeth sprouting on his lower gums, so he could be teething too.

Another misconception most elders carry is that 'if baby doesn't sleep all day, don’t' worry, he'll sleep well at night'... Not true at all..! I loved the "Sleep begets Sleep" theory
and it's very true... I've noticed that my baby gets more restful sleep at night when he's well rested and well fed all day.

@Pavarun, the change in caregiver definitely played a role in his sudden change in behavior. It took a little while for both MIL and baby to get used
to each other. Now he feels comfortable with her. One thing I feel I should've done is when MIL took over- I should've handed her his daily schedule for her to follow. The
flexibility offered to her made her feel clueless as to what the baby wants.

@swaran- You are correct in that my baby prefers darker and quieter places to drink mill and relax.

Things took a bit worse turn since I last wrote here as my baby wouldn't drink much at all (in fact one day only about 60% of his regular quote). He got really cranky that I would return home during the evenings to see my in laws breathe a sigh of relief- "We were worried as we couldn't calm him down".
And of course he hadn't slept more than an hour all day. One some days they tried taking him out for a walk to calm him down and he would return home totally exhausted and ready to crash. He also caught a cold and cough, which didn't help either.
So, I made it very clear (politely through repetition) that the quota of pumped milk I leave on the counter is exactly how much he needs to drink (if not more). I've given her an approximate schedule of feeding.
I've also told them that as summertime is approaching, so he all the more needs to drink milk to stay hydrated.
And also given her some tips like showing him a toy to keep him engaged as he finishes his milk and pulling the toy away once he's settled down.
Even though he still doesn't exhaust it all, it's gotten much better. Also he takes a short nap in the morning and a longer nap in the afternoon. And when I get home
I've noticed that he's much more relaxed than before. My MIL also gives him some rice cereal and Gerber purees.

All in all, we are in better shape.

My husband doesn't want to involve himself. Besides he has a hectic travelling job where he's out of the house 4 days a week. So it's on me to make sure baby is healthy and doing well. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed where I'm stretched between sounding thankless/critical and concern about my baby's welfare.
Overall, my in laws go head over heels in taking care of my son and shower him with a lot of affection, but I just want to channel those efforts in a way that my baby is as easy as possible for them to take care of..(which is he is ladies... given his stomach is full and he gets his naps!!!)

Thanks again for all your help. Sorry it took me so long to reply, but I wanted to come back with results.