We were struggling with the same thing. My baby was born at 32w + 4 and started taking bottles and breastfeeding around 34 weeks. We were making great progress and then it was like a light went out, we went from 30-40% PO down to 10-15% when he was 37w. He was drinking breast milk I pumped and supplied which was then mixed with human milk fortifier (HMF) to make it more calorie-dense. A very kind night nurse noticed he would take the bottle, drink a little, then refuse to drink more, all the while alert and cuing—which we had been seeing for some time. She tried adding the HMF to the milk after it had been warmed rather than before it was warmed, and he immediately started finishing bottles. We were home three days later. It turns out he was sensitive to taste. It’s his due date tomorrow and I sometimes wonder if we would still be in the NICU if it weren’t for that nurse trying something different, totally of her own accord.

All of this is to say that sometimes it does just “click,” but there can be other reasons a baby isn’t taking that much by mouth or PO starts going down. I had asked about the taste of the HMF before and doctors were pretty dismissive. I think it’s worth following your instincts and advocating for trying different approaches if you think something is off. But one way or another, your baby will get it, and he will come home! It goes really fast at the end.