Is DD (7 months) eating too much?

[gherkins]

More fretting about weaning I'm afraid. Started weaning a month ago - mix of mash/purees and BLW - and it's going really well. So far DD eats pretty much everything I've given her and seems to really enjoy her food.

I am still breastfeeding, doing 3 to 4 feeds a day and a bottle of formula at bedtime. She also has 3 'meals' during the day, always about 1 to 1.5 hours after a milk feed.

She really starts to cry for her food about an hour after milk - she will let me know if lunch or dinner is late! She loves eating, gobbles everything up, doesn't seem unsettled. But I'm worried DD is eating too much.

As an example, yesterday she ate:

Breakfast - 1 ice-cube of porridge, 1 ice-cube of stewed pear, several slices of nectarines and a couple of strawberries.

Lunch - 2 ice-cubes of homemade dahl, about the same amount again of cheese sauce with broccoli, 1 rice cake with hummus, lots of papaya slices. Oh, and about 3 slices of avocado, too.

Dinner - 2 ice-cubes of veg mix, more avocado, another rice cake with cream cheese, several slices of nectarines, more papaya slices.

I'm worried that she might not be taking enough from my breast as she seems so obsessed with food, and also that she might start to put on too much weight.

Is this way too much? How much do other babies this age eat? She hollers if I don't keep shovelling it in.... I'm worried I am going to make her into a chubby toddler .

By the way, she is on 50th centile and me and DH are normal size. She sleeps well at night, does not wake for milk, so clearly getting enough nutrition!!

[RitaMorgan]

Maybe cut back on the spoonfeeding and let her feed herself if you are worried? She will eat slower that way and it will be easier for her to recognise when she is full.

[SilveryMoon]

I wouldn't worry too much, they have such a simple relationship with food at this age. If she wasn't hungry, she wouldn't eat, or she'd throw it up.
I'd just follow her lead and let her tell you what she wants.

[kellieb7]

I could have wrote this OP, my DD is exactly the same but probably has more BF's
I have stopped spoon feeding as RitaMorgan suggests and I feel slightly more relaxed now despite the fact that DD still seems to eat huge amounts, good job I love chubby little one's

[gherkins]

Thanks for all the helpful advice everyone.

Guess I will follow Rita's suggestion about less spoon feeding - although it is hard because she appears to get so hungry she literally wants her mash shovelled in, and screeches if I'm a bit slow with the spoon!

Kellie - glad it's not just me with DD who eats like a gannet