Mumsnet Talk

my ds2 was 9lb 3oz at birth and is now 23 weeks, is roughly 19/20lbs and is so very ready to be weaned, infact i confess, i gave him some baby porridge on monday which he wolfed down and thoroughly enjoyed.

I think he is wanting to start dropping milks in favour of food, which im going to try to hold off until 25/26 weeks, but i do think he wants more than just milk, so my question is, how much milk should a 6 month old be taking?

thanks for reading

Breast or bottle fed?

bottle, sorry.

Minimum of 500-600ml a day.

and we've gone back to middle of the night feeding!

From what I have been told, breastmilk and formula contain more calories than solids, so by that reasoning you should offer the full number if bottles you were doing before and supplement with solids after the bottles. Replacing bottles with mush will fill his tummy, but won't be enough nourishment. And won't cancel out the night feed. I haven't weaned my babies yet but have just done a weaning course in preparation. They said for 9 months to a year it is fine for their main nourishment to come from breastmilk and/or formula and for solid food to supplement. On the basis of that I personally am planning to skip the mush and go straight for the finger foods.

beamae, in a way i agree, but i have an older ds who is 5 and when it came to weaning him (obv the advice has changed again), the emphasis was on getting him onto solids, using his mouth to chew, using his chewing muscles or it would cause speech problems, which incidently in mine it did, he didnt talk until he was 3.5 years old, so im a bit more aware of that this time. The health professional agreed that while it wasnt the whole cause of his speech delay, the fact that he wouldnt eat solids early on was a contributing factor.

There really is so much to think about.
thank you RitaMorgan too.

Yes I have read that somewhere. Also thought afterwards how you can mix formula or breastmilk into their food to up the calories. Theoretically, they should start leaving or refusing their bottles once they are getting enough food, so you could leave it up to your baby to decide how much milk to have in a day. You probably know more than me though since you have actually done it before!