Not All That Interested in Eating....

Hi M.!
My son is the exact same way! He is almost 9 months and sometimes I can barely get him to eat 7 ounces! But I didnt want him to miss out on the formula because I know he still needs it, so I dont feed him the food and bottle at the same time. I space it out. I will give him a bottle, two hours later a fruit or vegetable. So basically I am feeding him every 2 hours....yay! But hey I want him to have both so thats what I have to do. Also, my son was completely disgusted by the cereal as well, I dont even try it anymore, probably should though. But on a better note, your daughter's weight sounds beautiful so I wouldnt worry about it too much. I worry too but then have to remind myself that my son is almost 9 months and weighs about 20 lbs! So doesnt seem like hes starving. But he does go through phases where he eats more. I uped him to 8 ounces, and he ate it, but then stopped eating all of it, so now hes back down to 7 ounces and sometimes doesnt eat that! Sometimes I do go into a different room with him while Im feeding him with less comotion so he can consentrate on eating. I also still make him do a good burp and sometimes he will finish the rest! Confusing!! Good luck!

It is usual fo rthem to start taking less formula as you add jarred foods and cereal. Maybe she isn't very interested in the cereal or jarred food, but you need to consistantly offer it, your little one can't live on formula forever. Sometimes even children with healthy appetites will drink and eat less when teething. Different children have different likes and dislikes you might try offering the cereal at different temperatures, cold, room temp, maybe warm to find out which she prefers. I always made my childrens cereal with formula. Lots of luck to you
B.

I think it's normal. As long as your baby is eating some and is not ill (no fever, throwing up, diarhea, rash, etc.), she'll be fine. She won't starve herself. Look at her fist. That is the approximate size of her stomach. Babies have tiny little stomach's and as adults we sometimes forget that it doesn't take nearly as much to fill them as it does our considerably larger stomaches. My daughter didn't care for the infant cereals either. Having tasted it, I can't say that I blame her. But she liked almost all of the jarred baby foods, including the meats. Just keep offering her a variety of foods and try not to be dissapointed if she refuses them. My daughter consistently turned her nose up at the various foods offered, but I kept offering them to her anyway and now there is very little that she won't eat.

wow am curious as to who told you they must be eating 8 ounce bottles? All 3 of my kids never drank more than a 6 ounce bottle. They ate 6 ounces every 3-4 hours and when they were eating baby food they only had 4 ounce bottles with their meals because they would be too full to drink anymore than that. What you need to do is count how many ounces a day she is drinking not how many ounces you are making and find out what the recommended ounces are for her age. She will eat until she is full and you don't want to push her to eat more than that or that can cause problems later in her little life to where she will start over eating. I do have a food chart that recommends 850 calories for a 6 month old but it didn't mention anything about how many ounces of formula she should be getting if that is all she is eating. You can probably find that on the can or look it up on a website.

My kids would eat 2 Tbls cereal mixed with 1 tsp fruit and a little water or formula to mix the cereal with so it isn't so thick. They would drink a 4 ounce bottle after they ate the cereal.

This was usually their schedule
wake up at 5:30-6 am 6 oz bottle go back to sleep
9:00 6 oz bottle
12:00 cereal and 4 oz bottle naptime
3:00 6 oz bottle
6:00 eat 2 tbls veggies, cereal/fruit mix, 4 oz bottle
9 or 10 pm 6 oz bottle
had a bottle of water in their crib in case they wanted a drink in the middle of the night but they usually didn't wake up for it and slept until 5:30 or 6 before their next feeding. Sometimes they would wait until 4 hours but this was their basic schedule give or take an hour. I didn't feed them out of the jar. I would put 2 tbls at a time in a divided dish and never bought anything bigger than a stage 2 babyfood jar. If you feed them directly from the jar then the food rots because their saliva causes bacteria to grow in it pretty fast and the food will become runny. If you spoon it out in a dish you can use 1 jar of babyfood for 3-4 meals. I usually had a fruit jar and veggie jar opened and put in the fridge and those were the foods they got used until they were gone then would give a different one and this helps with looking for allergies as they are eating the same foods for a few days before introducing a new one. At a year old they were eating most of our table food. I got a food chopper under 10.00 at Wal-mart and chopped up all the meats so they were able to eat meat and diced or smashed up their veggies and mixed with a little water. Cooking baby carrots in the microwave worked well but you want to make sure they are cooled off well before they eat them. I used a small plate put a few carrots on it with a little water and cooked them for 45 sec- 1 minute or experiment with your time until carrots are soft and let them eat them like finger foods. The water in the bottom of the plate helps them cook better and not be burnt or dried out.

My girls never eat an 8oz bottle, even the one that I never had problems getting to eat. We always did a 6oz bottle. I don't remember the guidelines specifically but I seem to remember that they are supposed to get 20-24oz a day so your little one is getting more then plenty. We also always mixed the dry cereal into the baby food. My girls didn't like it by itself so we used it to thicken the baby food. This also makes the baby food a little less messy because it sticks to the spoon better but there are not in large chucks that she has to "chew". Hope this helps!

Hi M.,

My first thought was if she has the correct size nipple for her bottle? For being 6 months, she should be able to handle using a larger size.

Also, as long as she is getting something in her belly, she should be just fine. You know the old saying, "All kids are different". Just because your son was a great eater, doesn't mean your daughter has to be. Boys and girls are also different in so many ways as well. Your baby will tell you if she's still hungry. As long as she's not getting sick and your doctor is happy with her progress, then I wouldn't think there would be a problem.

Keep feeding her what she'll eat and introduce her to new foods every two-or-so weeks and see what happens.

God bless, ls

Sounds like a good eater compared to my girl! She ate 7-8oz of formula at a time for a week or so when she was in a growth spurt at 10 months, but now she's back to only eating 18-24 oz a day, no matter how much we warm it, mix in real milk (she's 11.5 months). She loves tons of foods but not the formula. I guess they just all eat differently.

The amount she's eating sounds okay. My son is 14 months and only 18lbs. He gets 3 6oz bottles a day (plus food). When we started him on cereal he HATED it. We figured out that he hated the dry cereal you mix with water or formula and would only eat the cereal in the jar. Try that:) Maybe she was going through a growth spurt and now has slowed down a bit.