Reverse Cycling/Bottle Refusal

[mandrews18]

My beautiful DD is 9 months old.  She has gotten progressively worse about refusing a bottle during the day while I am at work.  She will eat solids but she drinks very little.  On an average day she will take one bottle all day (715am-530pm).  some days she won't even take the one bottle.  I do nurse her just before I leave and again as soon as we get home but it seems to be an awfully long day to just have one bottle. She is not interested in a cup either.  We have tried several different sippy cups and regular cups.

She is nursing all night to get her calories in.   I have been putting her on hourly after we get home and hourly after bedtime until I go to bed to try to make it up. (530-630-730-830-930-1030) and that seems to help some but she still  does not sleep well-she often wakes for long periods in the middle of the night- and I am sure that this is a huge part of it.  We do cosleep but she doesnt get nearly as much sleep as a 9mo baby should get. 

Any advice for this tired momma?  I wish I could afford to just stay home with her, but unless I want to be homeless that isnt an option. 

[Megan73]

I'm more concerned about YOU than your babe - lots of babies will sleep eight hours with one feeding overnight, so I don't see that as a big problem.
The only thing I'd suggest is perhaps mixing solids with lots of BM to make a really soupy mixture - maybe she'd eat more of that by spoon?
Once she's consuming more BM during the day, you could get your DH to do more nighttime parenting - that really helped us with the night wakings at that age.
Hang in there, mama.

[annie2186]

Ok - soooo - I am obviously not 100% sure about this, but for me it was a miracle worker.

I was worried I was going to have to go back to work part time and my husband does not do so well with a baby who doesn't take a bottle. 

I had given my youngest (now six months) a bottle every day (medela) until about 6 weeks when she just started flat out refusing them! grrrrrrr

I tried to use the "breastflow bottle" and it does look pretty darn cool! but to no avail. 

I did a TON of research online and found a certain theme with the "latex nipple" instead of silicone. I took it one step further to a nipple that you can only now get online. It is http://www.amazon.com/Playtex-Natural-Action-Nipple-Fast/dp/B000056W6M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1317225448&sr=8-3

From the first time I tried it - my baby took to it like my boob! I have tried sucking on it (LOL) and it does feel muuuuuch different than the medela bottle aka typical nipple.

Before this I thought all babies were just being brats (you know what I mean) about taking a bottle because they wanted to be close to mommy, like the warmth, etc. etc. but after this experience I literally think that bottles are just crazy different and some babies just can't get over it!

Anyways - I just feel like I found a gold mine with this and wanted to pass it on to as many breastfeeding mom's as possible!

[mandrews18]

thanks :)  Megan, dad is a huge help at night.  He is super sweet and supportive and before she started refusing the bottle he would take her and let me have a break.  Now I am afraid to be away from her too long because she goes all day without drinking.  We tried to have a date one night and she went 16 hours with just a few sips of BM.  Thats way too long! 

I have some things I want to get from amazon anyway so I will add those nipples to the order!  I already use the drop ins so it will be an easy- and not too expensive test.  Its worth a try anyway! 

[annie2186]

Originally Posted by mandrews18 

thanks :)  Megan, dad is a huge help at night.  He is super sweet and supportive and before she started refusing the bottle he would take her and let me have a break.  Now I am afraid to be away from her too long because she goes all day without drinking.  We tried to have a date one night and she went 16 hours with just a few sips of BM.  Thats way too long! 

I have some things I want to get from amazon anyway so I will add those nipples to the order!  I already use the drop ins so it will be an easy- and not too expensive test.  Its worth a try anyway! 

If you don't mind - I would LOVE to find out if it works for you......just kind of wondering - because I really did NOT think it was going to work for me as easily as it did......

I hope they work as well for you as they did for me! As much as I love that my baby is getting such good nutrition - it is hard for them to be so dependent on your boobies for so long. LOL

[mandrews18]

I will :)   I found 2 in my stash last night.  I didnt even realize I had them until my husband looked at the picture and said we might have some in the cabinet.  I put them both on the bottles I sent with her today so we will see if she does any better. 

[sahmmie]

My son had a feeding aversion due to severe infant reflux and he took nothing by bottle/breast or cup from the age of 7 months until about 18 months of age. So, I totally understand your fear about her not getting enough fluids. 

What I did was what a pp suggested. I added at least some water, breast milk, or juice to all of his solids, and I fed him his breast milk by spoon. Sounds crazy, but it really worked and it kept him off of a feeding tube. It amazed me that he would not take a bottle of any kind and he would not nurse, but he's slurp breast milk off of a spoon! I used a plastic, picnic type of spoon. 

I hope you find a solution soon. I know how worried you must be.

[emilysmama]

Originally Posted by mandrews18 

My beautiful DD is 9 months old.  She has gotten progressively worse about refusing a bottle during the day while I am at work.  She will eat solids but she drinks very little.  On an average day she will take one bottle all day (715am-530pm).  some days she won't even take the one bottle.  I do nurse her just before I leave and again as soon as we get home but it seems to be an awfully long day to just have one bottle. She is not interested in a cup either.  We have tried several different sippy cups and regular cups.

She is nursing all night to get her calories in.   I have been putting her on hourly after we get home and hourly after bedtime until I go to bed to try to make it up. (530-630-730-830-930-1030) and that seems to help some but she still  does not sleep well-she often wakes for long periods in the middle of the night- and I am sure that this is a huge part of it.  We do cosleep but she doesnt get nearly as much sleep as a 9mo baby should get. 

Any advice for this tired momma?  I wish I could afford to just stay home with her, but unless I want to be homeless that isnt an option. 

I, too, am not worried about baby. I'm worried that YOU'RE not getting enough sleep.

My dd also reverse cycled at age 9 months.  However, my dd drank much less than your dd does during the day.  My dd drank absolutely nothing at all when I wasn't home, didn't do any solids, and I was gone for much longer than you. For most of the  workweek, I was gone for much longer hours than you  (7am - midnight) and for the rest of the work week, I was gone for just about the same hours as you (8am-6pm), and my dd didn't even take a single bottle.  (She never did figure out the bottle.) We had taught her to use a regular cup at age 4 or 6 months, but by age 9 months, she was refusing even that. 

That's right, when I got home at midnight, she did nurse all night to get her calories in, and she must have gotten them all  in because she had plenty of wet diapers, and she was always cheerful at daycare. Like you, we co-sleep.  My dd did wake up in the middle of the night many times to nurse a lot, but I don't remember much because I would just latch her on and immediately fall back to sleep while she was still nursing. I do remember flipping myself over from side to side to latch her onto alternating breasts each time she woke up for more, and I remember that I did this multiple times during the night, but all I remember doing was flip/latch/sleep.  I have no idea how much of the time she was awake during the night, because I slept through it all.

But she was perfectly cheerful the next day, all day, every day.  I am assuming that my dd got plenty of sleep at daycare, but I don't actually know for certain.  She must have gotten some sleep after my husband got her home from daycare at 7pm, and they both fell asleep at 8:30pm, because I always arrived home to find them both completely zonked out.  But when I got into bed, dd woke up, and immediately started nursing.  Perhaps she nursed very efficiently and went back to sleep soon after until the next feeding?  I really don't know because I slept through it all. As you can tell, I got plenty of sleep, but I have no idea how much sleep my dd got. Once I decided that my dd was not being harmed by the weird sleep habits of reverse cycling, I felt much less tired just because of the relief from the burden of guilt.

When you say that your child is not getting enough sleep for a 9 month old, why do you say that?  Is your child cranky/crying in the day time? Babies at that age in daycare still get a lot of sleep in the daytime. I would guess that at least some of the sleep is getting made up during the daytime, wouldn't you?  Is your child not sleeping during the daytime at all?    Or, are you saying that your baby is not getting as much sleep in the night time as other 9 month olds get during the night time?  I don't think the baby has to sleep for a set number of hours in the night time, just enough over a 24 hour period.

Unless your child is really stressed during the daytime, I wouldn't assume that your child is not getting enough sleep. 

Never fear, this too shall pass. (My dd is now 7.5 years old, having suffered no ill affects, and you would never know that she had done this crazy stuff when she was a baby.)

The more important question is, how much sleep are YOU getting, and is it enough? 

Edited by emilysmama - 9/29/11 at 7:37pm

[mandrews18]

Originally Posted by emilysmama 

I, too, am not worried about baby. I'm worried that YOU'RE not getting enough sleep.

My dd also reverse cycled at age 9 months.  However, my dd drank much less than your dd does during the day.  My dd drank absolutely nothing at all when I wasn't home, didn't do any solids, and I was gone for much longer than you. For most of the  workweek, I was gone for much longer hours than you  (7am - midnight) and for the rest of the work week, I was gone for just about the same hours as you (8am-6pm), and my dd didn't even take a single bottle.  (She never did figure out the bottle.) We had taught her to use a regular cup at age 4 or 6 months, but by age 9 months, she was refusing even that. 

That's right, when I got home at midnight, she did nurse all night to get her calories in, and she must have gotten them all  in because she had plenty of wet diapers, and she was always cheerful at daycare. Like you, we co-sleep.  My dd did wake up in the middle of the night many times to nurse a lot, but I don't remember much because I would just latch her on and immediately fall back to sleep while she was still nursing. I do remember flipping myself over from side to side to latch her onto alternating breasts each time she woke up for more, and I remember that I did this multiple times during the night, but all I remember doing was flip/latch/sleep.  I have no idea how much of the time she was awake during the night, because I slept through it all.

But she was perfectly cheerful the next day, all day, every day.  I am assuming that my dd got plenty of sleep at daycare, but I don't actually know for certain.  She must have gotten some sleep after my husband got her home from daycare at 7pm, and they both fell asleep at 8:30pm, because I always arrived home to find them both completely zonked out.  But when I got into bed, dd woke up, and immediately started nursing.  Perhaps she nursed very efficiently and went back to sleep soon after until the next feeding?  I really don't know because I slept through it all. As you can tell, I got plenty of sleep, but I have no idea how much sleep my dd got. Once I decided that my dd was not being harmed by the weird sleep habits of reverse cycling, I felt much less tired just because of the relief from the burden of guilt.

When you say that your child is not getting enough sleep for a 9 month old, why do you say that?  Is your child cranky/crying in the day time? Babies at that age in daycare still get a lot of sleep in the daytime. I would guess that at least some of the sleep is getting made up during the daytime, wouldn't you?  Is your child not sleeping during the daytime at all?    Or, are you saying that your baby is not getting as much sleep in the night time as other 9 month olds get during the night time?  I don't think the baby has to sleep for a set number of hours in the night time, just enough over a 24 hour period.

Unless your child is really stressed during the daytime, I wouldn't assume that your child is not getting enough sleep. 

Never fear, this too shall pass. (My dd is now 7.5 years old, having suffered no ill affects, and you would never know that she had done this crazy stuff when she was a baby.)

The more important question is, how much sleep are YOU getting, and is it enough? 

Her daycare is wonderful about filling me in on her day.  They give me a daily report including how long she sleeps, wet diapers, BMs etc.  She sleeps about 2 less hours than the average 9 month old.  As for me...yeah, I'm pretty tired.  My husband has picked up the slack around the house because I am often in bed before 8pm.  Its not the number of hours of sleep I'm getting though, its the fact that she is waking pretty much hourly all night long so I dont get even one uninterupted stretch of sleep.  I slept more when she was fresh from the hospital!

The latex nipples seem to be off to a good start.  I forgot to mention to her teacher that I was trying them in the hopes that she would take to them better.  Bree only took about 4ozs yesterday but the first thing her teacher said was that she didnt have to work nearly as hard to convince her to take the bottle and could the nipples be helping.  I am taking that as a hopeful sign!

[annie2186]

Originally Posted by mandrews18 

The latex nipples seem to be off to a good start.  I forgot to mention to her teacher that I was trying them in the hopes that she would take to them better.  Bree only took about 4ozs yesterday but the first thing her teacher said was that she didnt have to work nearly as hard to convince her to take the bottle and could the nipples be helping.  I am taking that as a hopeful sign!

yay!!!! I am sooooo hoping that she starts getting used to them! It will probably take a few/several days for her to realize they are different and start drinking more and more.........I am telling you though - for me it was a miracle worker.....

Here's hoping you start getting more sleep momma! Like other's have said though - this too shall pass.

[mandrews18]

I had latex nipples in the cabinet that were not exactly like the ones you had recommended.  She took those okay-even took 2 bottles for dad while I was running errands over the weekend- but Monday I finally got my Amazon order and yesterday she drank 3 bottles!!!!  I was so happy when I picked her up!!!  I hope I am not prematurely excited LOL  I sent them with her again today so hopefully we will have similar results!

[annie2186]

Originally Posted by mandrews18 

I had latex nipples in the cabinet that were not exactly like the ones you had recommended.  She took those okay-even took 2 bottles for dad while I was running errands over the weekend- but Monday I finally got my Amazon order and yesterday she drank 3 bottles!!!!  I was so happy when I picked her up!!!  I hope I am not prematurely excited LOL  I sent them with her again today so hopefully we will have similar results!

yay! I was always freaked out that my LO was going to start refusing again, or it was a fluke, so I gave her a few bottles a day at first..........but she has NEVER not taken the bottle (and there are times I go days without giving her one) - so I bet it will be the same for you