6 month old wants milk after all solids

[frans]

DD is 6 months old and, after a few weeks of gentle intro, I've started her on three meals a day (with water) with breastfeeds in between. Theoretically she should get solids plus water, or a breastfeed, every 2 hours but she's suddenly decided that she won't drink water from her beaker any more and wants a breastfeed after each meal. This means I've gone from 3 hourly feeds with a small amount of solids after three of them, to a breastfeed or good sized meal followed by breastfeed every two hours. This can't be right. Please help!!

[girlandboy]

Sounds familiar!

[whomovedmychocolate]

It's not right you should be offering milk FIRST at this point and then the food - breastmilk is still her most important food. It's great that she's trying food but your milk is MUCH more important than what solids she's having. Slow down and stop rushing, it's fine you have plenty of time.

[wasabipeanut]

It might be that she just wants some comfort. The solid food stuff is all a bit new to her - perhaps she is kicking back a little?

Sometimes I think babies push ahead and backwards at the same time IYSWIM.

[EffiePerine]

6 mo is still really early for food. Does she need three meals?

[frans]

Thanks all, I'm going by guidance in my two weaning books plus stuff I've picked up online - may be that I need to cut back to 2 meals and/or give her some milk before each meal.

[ThreeWheelsOnMyWagon]

hi frans, my dd did exactly the same thing! She just seemed to be feeding constantly for a good few weeks when I started to introduce solids, although I did take it quite slowly rather than introducing 3 meals a day all at once. ( She also went from sleeping 9 hrs each night to waking twice nightly for feeds )

The good news is that she has now settled down into a nice routine of three meals a day, with water, and a breastfeed in between meals (usually feeding to sleep for her 2 naps) as well as a morning and a bedtime feed. To be honest I was really keen for her to keep up the bfing and not drop any feeds too soon so I didn't encourage her to drink too much water early on as I wanted her to top up on milk. I also fed her milk first and solids afterwards.

Not sure why she suddenly upped her milk feeds when she started solids? She may have been extra thirsty with the introduction of food, or it could have been a comfort thing. It definitely gets better though!

[HolidaysQueen]

hi fran - my DS is 6.5 months. I've taken 4-5 weeks to build up to 3 meals gradually, and even now tea is very small. for breakfast and lunch i always offer milk first - one breast, then solids, then top up with the other breast. He isn't really taking much water yet, I think because he is having his thirst quenched beforehand, but I'll worry about that later As wmmc says, milk is more important at this stage as it is much more calorific than solids.

FWIW, our day is something like this:
7.30am - one breast, solids, second breast
11.30am, one breast, solids, second breast, 3pm - full breastfeed (no solids)
5pm - small tea, usually just finger foods (no breastmilk unless he's starving)
6pm - breastfeed

The breakfast and lunch bf/solids take a good 60-90 mins to get through atm!

He occasionally wants a bm top up around 10.30 in which case i push back the lunch to a bit later.

[frans]

Hi all, thanks v. much - I've slowed things down and started b/feeding DD before solids which seems to be going well.