9 Month Old Not Wanting to Nurse Very Much

E.,
Most babies go through this right around her age. It's completely normal and usually called a "nursing strike". You can probably find more info on www.kellymom.com about how to deal with it, but if I were you, I would put most emphasis on nursing, and less on formula and food. Nurse her first, THEN feed her food, so she gets mostly filled up on breastmilk (which is best for her right now anyway). Food before a year old is more experimental than anything, breastmilk should really be her biggest source of calories (and healthy fat). The more she fills up on food, the less she will nurse, and the more formula she gets, the less milk you will produce for her.
My son has been tiny, and we always worried about his weight. For a while, he wasn't even on the growth chart. If I had to do it again, I would have nursed him more, and started food much later.

Good luck to you!
T.
www.ReadandGrow.com

My top guesses are a nursing strike or teething. My daughter did the same thing, but I just kept offering and then she nursed for 3 more months. She was (and still is) a VERY busy girl and she was teething and/or distracted at most feedings. She had just begun to walk at 9 months and always wanted to be on the go! Another time that she didn't want to nurse was right around her 1st b-day and she had an ear infection.

Is she teething?
Are you producing enough milk? If you "replace" breastfeeding with formula... the body usually produces less milk.
Does she latch on properly? If not, a baby will not get enough intake because they don't know how to "suck" or latch onto the nipple.
Feed her breast/Formula first... not solids. Otherwise she will be too full to nurse or drink her bottle.
Feed her breast or bottle ON-DEMAND, 24/7, day and night. Do NOT feed her according to a "schedule." Schedule fed babies usually do not get enough intake. Offer her a bottle or breast every couple of hours. Not just 3 times a day... .that is too little.

Ask your Doctor what to do.... or if she simply refuses to drink her Formula or nurse.

3 0z. of Formula, 3 times a day, is not much at all. A baby needs to feed more often. Does she even indicate "hunger?" Does she know how?

all the best,
Susan

E., our girls could be sisters :D My daughter is 9 months and we'll be lucky if we hit 15 lbs at her next check up. Before you stuff her full of food, let me ask you a few questions. What was your daughter's birth weight? Is she gaining weight at all? My girls were both small at birth and my oldest finally caught up with her weight at about 2 years old. She's still below 50% but she's closer than she's ever been. My 9 month old is still wearing 3-6 month clothes and can still fit quite a few 0-3. She was 5lbs 8ozs at birth. She is on a perfect curve for her weight, it's just not within the percentile range that the growth charts show. I'm not sure why some doctors are so obsessed with weight. Is your baby healthy? Is she happy? If so, then I wouldn't worry too much about what she weighs. She's starting table foods and baby foods now and at this age those are more interesting than Mommy's milk. Plus, I best she's getting more and more active. Babies just don't want to sit still long enough to nurse or take a bottle. Nurse on demand as often as you need to. Sometimes I feel like my baby spends all day nursing and other days she doesn't seem to want it at all. Feel free to message me if you wanna chat with another mom that has teeny baby syndrome ;)

I intended to breastfeed my son for the first year of his life. Around 10 months, I discovered I wasn't producing enough milk. You might want to check that out with your doctor. Also, my son has always been underweight. (He is currently 6'1" and still doesn't weigh 150 lbs at 17.) His first doctor told me that as long as he was growing in height, he wasn't concerned about the weight. The most important thing is if your daughter is healthy. My son fell off the bottom of the weight chart more than once but he is incredibly strong and healthy.

When my daughter was 10 months old she didn't want to nurse anymore so I stopped nursing and switched her to formula.

She may be weaning herself and honestly, if she is, you may want to let her. It may be harder for you and her if you wait until after a year old. You could nurse her once a day for the nutrients. I would try to give her more baby food during the day or finger foods. Maybe mix your nurse milk with the formula and she may like it better. Pump and add it to it instead of water.

Let me start by saying that my daughter is not little at all...she's at least 20 lbs and is almost 8 months old and she is formula fed. BUT in the last month, she has begun to consume much less formula than she did before. This is new to me because I have 2 boys and they both ate tons of formula and food all day long...and still do at 7 and 4! She definitely prefers baby food and would love to be able to eat more table food. Around 6 months, I started making sure she drank her bottle first so that she would drink as much as she could and then an hour later I give her any solids she wants. It has helped, but she's still nowhere near what I'm used to. Another story, is my niece's baby. She turned 1 in February and is still only 17 lbs. She is a teeny tiny little girl, but just like my niece was when she was a baby...and still is. Her daughter was formula fed, but did not want to drink her bottles and cared more for food. Her ped told her to add more dry formula to her cereal so she would get a few extra calories. I don't think it helped much because she is still so little. They were never concerned with it and still aren't. All babies are different and I think some are just little...there's nothing wrong with it and there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't bother my niece at all and she just laughs when she sees our babies together. Pretty soon I think we'll be giving her our hand-me-downs. :o)