To make a very long story short-- we have had a lot of feeding issues with our LO up to and including bottle refusal and then her eating only with a lot of requirements (like, only I could feed her, only when she was swaddled, on when she was tired but not too tired, only when I was sitting in one specific chair in one specific room and the fan was on.. etc). Point being she is not a kid who will just "eat when she's hungry" and she is not generally excited for food.. ever.

About 6 weeks ago we dropped to 4 bottles per day, every 4 hrs, and we were giving her 8 oz at each bottle and she was actually doing great and finishing almost every bottle. Which was amazingly awesome because she has generally eaten on the lower end of normal and suddenly she was taking 32 oz/day. And this is extra awesome because she has been steadily dropping % in weight-- not enough to be too concerned about but definitely she could stand to gain a bit.

Then 3 weeks ago she started refusing bottles again (like refusing entirely, not just not finishing) so we dropped to feeding her two 8 oz bottles and two 6 oz bottles and suddenly she was eating again. So we think maybe she needs to be really hungry to eat?

But then last week she started acting like she was still hungry when she was done with the bottle (holding onto it and trying to pull it back and keep sucking even once it was gone) so we moved back to four 8oz bottles and she has been doing great.

Now she's doing the bottle-holding thing with the 8oz bottles though. So I think maybe she is still hungry? But moving up to 9 or 10 oz bottles seems like too much at one time for an 8 mo right?

I am guessing most babies at this age are eating more solids for calories but she just isn't interested yet. I offer at least once/day but she hardly consumes anything.

So do I increase the size of her bottles to 9 oz? Or leave them as-is and keep offering solids hoping that at some point she'll get hungry enough to eat more? I do want to encourage solids, but I don't want her to be hungry (although at 32 oz/day and less than 17lbs it seems like she shouldn't be STARVING).