Breastfeeding frequency at 8 months

[Cbell]

Just a quick question.

How often should I be BF my DD at 8 months?

Our routines are a little crazy! It was something like this
Breakfast: 7am
BF: 10am (before nap)
BF: 11. 30 am (after nap)
Lunch: 12.30pm
BF: 2.30pm (before nap)
BF: 3.30pm (after nap)
Supper: 5pm
BF: 6pm
BF: 9pm
Then many night feeds! (2-4)

This seems a lot but her weight gain has been consistent and not at all excessive for her percentile.

However, I would like to stop feeding her before her naps so that she doesn't so closely associate feeding with sleeping. These are often very short feeds so I am planning on just reducing the time, minute by minute!

But how often should she be BF? Solid meals are a bit hit and miss. Sometimes she eats, sometimes she's not so interested and I am trying to take it all at her pace. I am wondering if I reduce BF then she may be a little more motivated about eating solids.

[RitaMorgan]

There's no rule really - just however often you and she want to. The WHO recommendation is "frequently and on demand" til 2 and beyond, and the NHS recommends on demand until at least 1, and then for as long as you wish to continue.

[Mandyville]

My guess is that every baby's different. Mine dropped her lunchtime feed first (looked at me like a loon when I tried to offer a b/f after lunch) and then the mid-afternoon one. Sounds like the feed before a nap isn't so much a feed as a little help dropping off to sleep. If you can persuade her to do without, then fab!

If your DD is like mine,, though, I would try to drop the 11.30am feed first. See if you can maybe replace it with an early lunch - our nursery feeds them at 11.45am for example. That might make the afternoon feed-before-sleep a proper feed and then you can drop the one AFTER the nap and THEN she might want more dinner. No idea if that would work in practice, though! Good luck!

[cantmakecarrotcake]

My DD is 7.5 months and our day is something like this after having been advised by the HV to drop some milk feeds to encourage uptake of solids (also very hit or miss):

7/7:30am Breakfast
9am BF (before nap)
12-ish Lunch
2pm BF (before nap)
5pm-ish Dinner
7pm BF
Then 1 or 2 BF during the night (incidentally I think we have better food days when she BF less in the night but I'm not ready to tackle night feeding).

Prior to this our day was much the same as yours - BF every 2.5 hrs. The first feed I dropped was the late afternoon one (your 3:30) and then the late morning one (your 11:30). This meant there was more time between BF and food.

This is what has worked for us so far (although meals are still hit or miss so I can see me replacing the 9am feed with a snack soon if she's still night feeding), but I know there is a school of thought (Kellymom) that because milk is so important that you should BF 1 hr before solids. In our case mealtimes would be more of a complete farce if we did that.

Go gently with dropping feeds. I read somewhere not more than 1 a week and maybe as Mandyville says bring the meal forward to bridge the gap.