BLW and the baby after 1

[fluffyanimal]

Aitch, your baby is past her first birthday isn't she. So if food is for fun until they are one, presumably after that it gets serious? What are your thoughts on increasing food / reducing milk, if someone is finding the BLW method results in only small consumption of solids (sorry hunker...)?

Genuine question, because I have read somewhere that too much calcium can inhibit absorbtion of other elements.

[AitchTwoOh]

i can only speak from experience, but i noticed that around 12 and a half months she dropped some of her milk feeds and started drinking more water and eating more food. are you blwing at the moment? i remember thinking 'uh-oh' when dd was approaching one, i must say.

i wasn't aware of the calcium thing, as far as i was aware they needed calcium for bone growth etc. in fact i've been trying to find out about high calcium foods like sardines etc. where did you read about the absorption thing and how much milk would you have to be drinking for this to be a problem, do you think?

[funnypeculiar]

DD is baby-led weaned (because SHE decided to, rather than I did!!) - she's 11 mths, and spontaneously dropping her milk feeds of her own accord - eg only had 1 oz last night at bed time, as she'd spent the last hour stuffing her face with stirfried veg & egg noddles!!
Interested to know more about the calcium thing, as, like aitch, I'm shoving sardines down her atm...

[lulumama]

DD is 18 months and has gradually dropped the amount of milk she has had and her solid intake has increased....she is not a big eater, but eats a varied and wide diet, in small amounts.

i gave her cutlery at 14 months or so and now she has learnt to use it quite well, although if she is hungry she favours her hands to stuff it in quick!

i have not tried conciously to reduce her milk, but she has done it herself, and it she is fine !

introduced a beaker of water or v. dilute fresh fruit juice at meals too and she has water / v. dilute juice during the day to qunech her thirst or some watery fruit, like melon or orange...

she has never been a big eater, so i was not expecting her to suddenly eat a massive amount once she got to one !

[CanSleepWontStarve]

I reduced dd's milk intake when she was 11 1/2 months fa (she turned 1 a week ago), as I was worried about her rather small intake. The result was that over a few days she greatly increased her solids intake. We've gone from 7-9 bfs a day to 2 over the last month.

[terramum]

The calcium thing I understood as if milk is consumed at mealtimes then it can inhibit the absorbtion of iron so if you keep the milk feeds outside of main meals then you should be ok (although if your talking about bfing then it isnt an issue anyway)....but you can go a little mad trying to balance out every meal to get the max amount of every vitamin & mineral .

DS is now 2yrs & 7 months & has been fully bl weaned. I havent made any effort to reduce his bm intake - Ive just kept feeding him on demand & offering him food when we eat at mealtimes & snacks & he has increased his solids & reduced his bm all on his own...hed start asking for "more more" after meals a lot so we increased his portions of solids...some days he still asks for more when hes had a bigger meal than me & only have morning & bedtime breastfeeds...and some days he seems to eat nothing & have bm every couple of hours like a newborn...but he has more energy than the energizer bunnie (does anyone else have a child that eats jumping up & down? ) and is developing fabulously so is obviously thriving.

[fluffyanimal]

Well I confess that I read about the calcium thing in Annabel karmel (groans all round) but i do believe she does know her stuff about diet balance, whatever else people may think of her. Anyway, although I'm not actually doing BLW myself, DS is showing more and more of a preference for self-feeding, but given that he gets distracted or bored very easily he doesn't eat as much as when I help him, and I feel that now he is 11 months, I shouldn't just rely on the milk to fill him up.

But from people's experience it all seems to happen of its own accord so I'm probably worrying unnecessarily.

Guess I also just have to be patient while his self-feeding skills improve so that he eats more, but that's quite a leap of faith at the moment. Working full time so hungry baby esp in middle of the night is not a good thing!