So my daughter who is almost 8 months old has been way less interested in drinking her whole bottle for the past couple weeks at least. I have only been giving her one jar of baby food in the evening and she eats that no problem. But each daytime bottle feeding, instead of the normal 6 ounces she has been on, she pushes it away after only 3 or 4 at most. However, she still wants to eat a full bottle at least once during the night. I do not want to force it, but I worry she is not getting enough throughout the day. I have considered taking her off baby food completely until 9 months to see if that helps. Any thoughts?
I wouldn't worry about it. Babies eat like crazy during growth spurts, and less in between.
Think of it this way - if you were nursing, you would have no idea how much your baby was taking at each feeding. And as long as she was satisfied when she was done, you'd consider it a successful feeding. Try to see it that way with a bottle too, and as long as she is happy, energetic, and having a wet diapers, don't worry about counting ounces.
As long as she is still putting out adequate wet and dirty diapers, and gaining weight as she should be, I would not worry. If she is still having e same basic behavior, still happy, etc. you can worry even less.
I imagine she is probably between growth spurts... But you might look into putting a faster-flow nipple on her bottle if she has been using a lower flow for a while... It could be that once her hunger is sated she just isn't willing to work for more just to top off.
As far as the baby food thing goes, if she enjoys it I would say to let her keep having small amounts AFTER her evening bottle... Just for the practice of eating solids, not for nutrition sake.
That's what they do!
She's probably in between growth spurts or she's teething.
Try giving her the jar of baby food in the morning instead of the evening.
It could be it gives her a full feeling so she stops eating but since she can't digest it very well yet then she gets hungry again during the night.
Her appetite will pick up again.
As long as she's gaining weight and filling/wetting diapers she's doing fine.
The amount of baby food you're feeding her is fine. She needs the nutrients in the formula more that the junk in the flavored goo that is baby food. It has almost no nutrients in it. Formula is stuffed with nutrients.
She just isn't hungry right now. Let her eat when she needs it. She'll take of in another month or so and eat all the time. That's when you can really introduce her to table foods and skip the flavored goo junk. Really, baby food is useless except to teach a baby to chew and swallow.
You can feed her your own table food now. Chop it up really well with a food processor or chopper like Pampered Chef's food chopper.
Just small amounts to start with. I might even wait for this step for another month or so. So she can transition off formula at 12 months and be totally on table foods.
A whole jar of baby food is a lot unless she's constantly hungry. I wonder if she's just very distracted while you're feeding her the bottle. Sometimes that causes babies to not take what they are used to.
I'd give her a half of a jar instead. Ask the ped how many ounces of milk she actually needs a day, and go by that. I'll bet it will right tiself when she hits a growth spurt.
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A whole jar of baby food is a lot unless she's constantly hungry. I wonder if she's just very distracted while you're feeding her the bottle. Sometimes that causes babies to not take what they are used to.
I'd give her a half of a jar instead. Ask the ped how many ounces of milk she actually needs a day, and go by that. I'll bet it will right tiself when she hits a growth spurt.
