Yesterday my son turned 8 months and I had to leave for work for longer than I had in awhile because of the holidays. On weekdays I am able to make it home for his every feeding because I work close to home (he is still breastfeeding about every 3 hours) , but on the weekends I have to leave for 4 and 8 hour stretches so I pump and he gets a bottle from either our babysitter, my husband or my mom.

Yesterday my mom was with him and she warmed up a bottle like she always did and he just slapped it away and refused to take it. Every time she offered it he just slapped it away and would spit it out once it got into his mouth. He refused solids as well. I got home and tried to offer him the bottle and he did the same thing. Then I breastfed him and he ate absolutely normally.

Today I was away for longer and the same thing happened. He refused the bottle (my mom also tried putting water in it to see if it’s the milk or the bottle), giving it to him by spoon, mixing it with oatmeal cereal and giving him puréed food. He ate some of the oatmeal but that’s about it. I just made it home and he’s still sleeping but he hasn’t really had a full meal since 9 am and it’s 5:30. Normally he would have eaten 4 times already!!

I don’t know what to do, since he only eats about half of a jar of purée at a time and to get the calories he would need to eat like 4-5 of those. He used to love the bottle and never had any problems with it. He would eat it till the last drop. Did anyone have any experience like this? If he’s refusing to eat even if he’s hungry I don’t know how I will be able to work for more than 3 hours at a time!

All help is much appreciated!