How do you know when to replace milk with snacks?

[BabyLlamaZen]

9 mo generally eats his 3 meals a day. He breastfeeds apart from that and it really is as and when, but normally before a nap. Sometimes he seems to have loads and I wonder if he really wants some more solids?

[BabyLlamaZen]

Also how often to offer water? Again there have been a few times in the evening before bed where is being a bit overactive and doesn't want to breastfeed but will then have some sippy cup of water! We don't normally offer this outside of meals though.

And when can he start eating things like raw carrot, apple etc? He still has only 2 teeth so bit confused tbh!

[BabyLlamaZen]

We do baby led weaning so he eats what we eat but we don't give him the really hard things.

[Lockdownseperation]

After 12 months.

[rottiemum88]

Babies gums are surprisingly hard, he can have things like carrot and apple now, you might be surprised at how much he manages to eat of them

[Ratbagratty]

From my experience At 9 months offer water with food, breastmilk at snack times/bedtime/on demand. After 12 months swap breast milk slowly with a snack between meals. At 12 months I also introduced a sml cup of whole milk with the afternoon snack to get them used to the flavour when they were ready to stop breast milk. One refused cow's milk until almost 2 (stopped breast milk at 14months) and the other it worked well with and swapped to cow milk only at 15months.

As for teeth my eldest's teeth came through really late (15months) but could really easy eat most things as their gums are really hard. But carrot sticks I lightly steamed for a long while. Apple I did as quite thin slices. Meat got gummed for a bit then thrown on floor but it's about the taste and textures not if they eat it.

[BabyLlamaZen]

Thank you

I will try the apple!

[Saltisford]

I grate apple to put in my baby’s porridge and as I’m cooking it, I let him have the left over apple. He loves holding the whole thing and trying to eat it. Keeps him well entertained! Same with a pear!

[Putmynewshoeson]

My DS is formula fed so not really the same but he has a bottle, then his breakfast, then has a little snack when he wakes from his nap (fruit or veg sticks or melty puffs/sticks/rice cake) followed by his lunch solids, another bottle a few hours later, dinner and then bedtime bottle. Only has one snack currently, will introduce more at a year old as his milk gets further reduced