Bottle Strike?

[charitycase20]

So my DS,Zachary who is 4 months old and EBF...I pump twice a day at work so he can have BM at daycare. He was doing well up until a couple weeks ago and then he suddenly stopped taking his bottles. He will maybe take a 3 oz. bottle in an 8 hour time frame. Of course, he's ready to nurse when I pick them up at 3:30 and then again around 6pm and around 8:30 at bedtime and several times through the night even though he was sleeping through until the last month. We went for his well baby visit yesterday and he went from the 25th percentile in weight to about 10-15 percentile. His ped. isn't concerned but he did suggest maybe having DC mom give him cereal at lunchtime...I don't want to do that either...Any thoughts mamas? Has anyone else had this happen?

[jaceraden]

Mama.

Babies have their own minds. Some babies will go back and forth from breast to bottle with ease. Some won't. AND, some will start out taking a bottle and then go on strikes just like your LO is doing.

All I can really say is that sometimes the strikes are temporary and sometimes they are permanent. It doesn't have to be a big stressful deal (easy to say, hard to do - I know). My DD NEVER took a bottle and would wait up to 14 hours for me to get home to nurse her. Even now - at 12 months this week - she'll only have milk in her cereal while she's at daycare and wait for me to nurse. Oh, and she has a cup that she sips water from.

My point is that your LO knows when to eat/not eat and will not starve. Offering the bottle option frequently will help. There's also no harm in offering the cereal if you're comfortable with it (At 4 months I tried the cereal option since I was freaked right out that she didn't drink all day but she wasn't ready for solids until about 6 months or so).

I hope something in there was helpful to you

ETA: I went back to work at 4 months too and DD nursed extra when I was home (mostly at night) to make up for it. It was rough for a bit but she slowed down on the night feeds once she got more into solids. I truely believe that nighttime feeds made up for me being gone all day and she never completely fell off the growth chart.