How often does your 10mo breastfeed?

[Macocious]

Hi

My 10 month old has recently started to become much more interested in solid food and it seems like really suddenly he is eating 3 substantial meals a day (BLW). At the same time his milk intake has dropped drastically and I just want to make sure he's getting enough.

At the moment he doesn't want milk on waking in the morning and will have big feeds of about 10 minutes long before his morning nap and afternoon naps and a small feed (5ish minutes) before bed. He will have a quick feed once in the night too.

This really doesn't seem like very much to me... I don't know anyone who's still breastfeeding their baby and the guidelines for how much formula they should have just sound like so much. I offer frequently, but he won't take any more.

I've was also wondering about moving to morning and night only feeds when I return to work in two months. Should I just leave things to progress naturally for a bit or should I work towards shifting the pattern of feeds? At the moment his most substantial feeds are at 10 am and 2 pm but I'd really like this to be more like 7 am and 7 pm...

[eagle2010]

Shamelessly following - my 9mo DS is almost the same with feeds and I'll head back to work when he's about 11.5mo.

I'd hope to be able to feed before work, maybe after work (am a teacher so should be home by 4) and before bed.

[Pusspuss1]

No bad thing that he's cutting down naturally before you go back to work. Mine still feeds first thing, before both naps, before bed, during the night at least once and another couple of times during the day if he fancies it, but that may not be typical!

[callamia]

I'm really interested in this. All but one if my friends with babies the same age are formula feeding - about three large bottles a day. I know breastmilk isn't exactly comparable, but it's the only barometer I seem to have.

We're doing something similar to pusspuss at nearly nine months, but food intake seems to be increasing steadily.

[CityDweller]

I remember posting something similar when DD was about that age. She dropped several feeds in one go. At 10 months she was still on 4 a day (first thing, after both naps and before bed). I worried a bit about it too, but I think babies are pretty clever at taking what they need.

I wouldn't worry now about 'forcing' any adjustments to the feeds in anticipation of going back to work. Things will probably change of their own accord anyway by then. I went back to work at 8.5 months, and expressed for DD's daytime feeds when I was away from her. I then gave up expressing at 12 months and we dropped DD's daytime feeds overnight (she just had more water/ snacks) and she didn't bat an eyelid (according to CM). I carried on offering those daytime feeds for a week or two on days we were together, but she quickly stopped wanting them.

[Macocious]

Thanks CityDweller. It's really useful to hear other people's experiences. DS seems a little bit better with the milk today. He has been totally disinterested the last few days. He only had two feeds all day yesterday.