9 Month Old Refusing Bottle

Hey J.~

My older boy did a similar thing... he was 11mos, though. He decided he liked the sippy cup better than the bottle. I just gave him formula in the sippy instead. It made it super easy - no struggle with taking the bottle away at 3 years old or something! ;)

As far as the spitting up, that may have just been a fluke... she should be getting finger food at this point... is she taking anything solid or baby food? She may just be ready to give up on the bottle. In which case, try the formula in the sippy thing. It worked for me.

Good luck.
~J.

Not a lot or people will agree with this, but this is what worked for us:

My son did the same thing at 9 1/2 mos and we switched him to sippy cups. For 2 wks it worked but then he stopped drinking them too. We started replacing the formula with whole milk 1 oz at a time and after a week of that he was refusing again. I gave him just milk and he gulped it down. So, at 10 months my son stopped drinking formula and was on whole milk. I made sure he got plenty of iron in his food.

Dehydration in babies can be VERY serious. Not to scare you, but it is something to watch out for and try to prevent. The 8mo old I care for just recently did this and then a week later cut a tooth. He was a great one for drinking 6-8 oz EVERY bottle and suddenly went to just gumming the nipple and not drinking anything for a couple days. His mom and I basically ended up pinching the nipple of the bottle to let it drip in his mouth to make sure he got enough liquid. If she is not peeing, she is dehydrated. If she hasn't peed for 24 hours you need to call your Dr. There are several medical things that can cause a baby to go off the bottle including: a sore in her mouth, teething, ear infection and sore throat amongst others I'm sure I missed. This doesn't even take into account the moodiness of infants. Also remember she might have been absolutely fine when you went IN the pediatrician's office but up something while she was there. Good luck with it though and just keep an eye on her. The most dangerous stuff happens when parents are not paying attention to their kids and you are already on alert.

One way to get some water into her is to get small water bottles with the twist lids. If she sees you drinking from them she'll probably take right to it. And if they get knocked over the twist lid will leak, but not like a cup with no lid. Many stores stopped selling the ones you can open (they call them child proof), but I found ones you can open at Bloom a month or two ago. Then you could open them and put in formula or breast milk. She definitely needs wet diapers and this could get her some fluids. Good luck!!

Hi, J.. It sounds to me like she might either have a sore throat, or possibly some pain from teething. This doesn't sound like a long-term thing to me. But if she doesn't go back to normal soon, I would just call the pedi's office and speak to someone - just to be sure that you're looking out for signs of dehydration, or that you don't miss something that can turn serious, like strep throat. Good luck!

Do you feed her any baby food? If not it may be time to start introducing baby food and cereal. It's not unheard of for a baby to wean themselves at 9 months. Can she hold her own bottle? Does allowing her to hold the bottle help? She may just want to assert some control over the situation.

Babies are constantly changing and you just have to go with the flow. As long as she isn't acting sick it probably is just a phase, you just have to figure out what she wants and what she needs!

Good luck!

Hi J.,
You have gotten some good advice already, but the first thing that popped into my mind reading your question is your little girls ears. I know you said you just went to the doc on Monday, but ear infections can pop up over night. There were many times when my youngest was 7-12 months old that I would take her in for an appointment and she would be fine and then the next day she would have the same symptoms that your daughter has. I would take her back in to see the doc and she would have an infection in there.

I say if she is not drinking better in the next day or so, take her in and have her checked just to be safe.

I agree with PP that you might want to check with your doctor and maybe try a new cup...now is a good time to start introducing sippy cups anyway if you haven't already. Someone else mentioned starting her on solids...if you are already doing that have you noticed that she is eating more solid foods? I know my sons both slowly started cutting back on the formula/breast milk once they started eating more. Good luck!