BLWing my almost 7mo - how are we doing?

[JustPretending]

Started weaning just past 6 months & doing mostly BLW (tried a spoon for yogurt but baby likes to grab & control personally).

It's going really well in terms of range of foods (fruit, veg, rice cakes, bread, sampling some of our dinners etc, tuna croquettes, hummus on pitta, pasta with cherry toms & garlic etc.)

We've just increased to 2 meals per day as of yesterday. Weight gain is fine, as expected. Baby was sleeping through but is now occasionally waking for a night feed and amounts eaten, while consumed with gusto, are small & lots goes on the floor. I tend to offer 3 or so things to eat per meal, one at a time in small amounts. Hand-eye coordination is still all over the place. A day typically looks like this:

7am Expressed BM, 200 mls (have given one bottle EBM since tongue tie division helped establish BFing after a rocky start - mostly to avoid bottle refuser).
9:15am BF
9:45am Nap for an hour approx
11:45am Lunch
12:30pm BF
4pm BF
6pm BF
6:45pm Tea when DP gets in
8:00pm BF & bed

And as mentioned, occasional night feed since starting to wean - developmental rather than caused by hunger?

DC is not great at having a second nap. To be honest, I feed to sleep for nap & night time & realise I should start tackling this soon.

I would like to:

• gradually move to 3 meals per day
  
• gradually increase meal size
  
• decrease BF during the day as a return to work is on the cards in late October.
  

Any helpful tips / thoughts on current pattern welcome...

[Vicky5910]

Hi :) I blw'd my DD. This sounds pretty good to me if you are happy with it.
I never bothered with a routine or trying to stop feeding to sleep. Honestly it's been a blessing over the years to have a sure fire way to get her to sleep when she is fighting it!
IME breakfast never goes down well, so when you move to 3 meals perhaps a 10am snack and a later lunch might work well. The 10am snack could be a way for their carer to break up the day with them when you are at work.
To reduce day time feeds try to extend the gap between feeds slowly with distraction techniques, until one feed has moved into the next so you're one feed down. Getting out the house really helps with distraction. Be prepared for some more night waking though if you cut out day feeds. Some babies 'reverse cycle' when away from mum in the day and feed all night instead. It's doable, if you breastfeed laying down all night :)

[JustPretending]

Thanks. Interesting about breakfast - seems to me the most challenging meal to make interesting too. I made some porridge fingers (oats, milk, cinnamon & grated apple baked) which went down well but can't serve too often or it'll become boring. Eggs - not so keen thus far. Texture maybe?

[freedom2post]

Mini shredded wheat good for BLW breakfast.

Pour milk up, warm up in microwave, pour milk away and tip onto highchair tray.

Quite easy to grab.

Eggy bread is another breakfast dd3 likes, Houmous on toast goes down well but is messy!

[Vicky5910]

Eggy bread went down well with my DD too :) scrambled egg chunky style worked too!

[freedom2post]

Yy to chunky scrambled egg.

I do cheesy scrambled egg with added tomato for lunch sometimes - I stole the idea from Annabel Karmel.

DD3 loves.

[freedom2post]

porridge pancakes

[freedom2post]

Cream cheese on toast another good breakfast. I'll stop now

[feekerry]

sounds fine.
honestly tho don't worry too much about feeding to sleep etc.... your dc is pretty much sleeping thru!!! whatever you are doing is working!! my dc2 now 7 months wakes between 2-7 times a night so you are doing well!!
dc2 has taken to blw amazing well. i just offer whenever we are eating (regardless of when last bf or what time of day it is)
toddler dc1 is always eating/snacking so dc2 gets lots of opportunity to eat!!
in both my dc cases they woke more when i started solids mainly due to tummy dealing with various foods so a bit uncomfortable etc.
also, i am/went back to work at a similar stage...really don't worry about reducing bf and inc meals etc. just go with the flow. they adapt v well!!

[JustPretending]

Thanks - great breakfast ideas & also advice re returning to work. Am also thinking of myself re dropping feeds gradually as at 7 months I still occasionally get engorged / have occasional leaks, so want to be ahead of the game before I am back at work as then I will be out from 8am - 6pm including commute.

[notadoctor]

It sounds like you're doing great! I did BLW with DD and am going to start with DS soon...

With her, we just gradually swapped milk feeds for snacks/ meals so by 9mo she was just having milk when she woke up and before bed. We'd swap one milk feed every 4-5days so in the end our routine was something like:

7am BF
8am Breakfast
9.30 Nap
10.30am Snack
12.30pm Nap
1.30pm Lunch
3.30pm Snack
Sometimes cat nap at 4ish
6pm Tea
7pm BF
7.30pm Bed

For breakfasts - as well as the ideas above, she also enjoyed fruit and yogurt, drop scones with blueberries, banana on toast.