Health Visitor - is this bad advice?

[doadeer]

DS is nearly 8 months. We have a good routine with his meal and nap times, he eats 3 full meals, typically it's:
6am - breastfeed in bed, back to sleep
7.30am wakes
8am Breakfast (porridge and fruit)
9.45 breastfeed
10am nap
12 lunch (veg, toast, fruit or something like that)
1.45 breastfeed
2pm nap
5pm dinner (proper dinner like chicken casserole then yoghurt)
7pm breastfeed

He will usually wake 1-2 times in night.

Today, health visitor said I shouldn't be giving any milk in the day, it should be 3 meals and two snacks so instead of any milk it should be a piece or cucumber or toast. And only breastfed morning and evening. What's the nutrition in a bit of cucumber compared to milk?

It feels very young to drop milk --- can anyone advise?

She is wrong. He's eating a very good amount of food for 8 months so no need to cut down on milk at all (even if he wasn't - FWIW - still not a reason to cut down).

I stopped listening to weaning advice after number 2. None of my children seemed ready to wean at 6 months. All were between 7-8 months and not really eating much until 10 months. Then naturally they took less milk.

Letting baby decide is best in my opinion.

@anothernamejeeves

Food before fun until 1 is my motto and I AM a hv

That's interesting - could you tell me what your advice would be for a 10-month-old who'd been happily breastfeeding but then stopped? I.e. refused to feed and screaming at the breast. Would you say they needed formula instead of the breastmilk - bearing in mind they ate loads of 'normal' food throughout the day as a toddler would?

I just got very confused about it all!

My HV said the same recently. My DD is 9 months old, she is eating but not loads. They recommended reducing BF feeds and increasing food snacks. I think she still wants and needs her milks so am not going to try to reduce feeds until she leads me to.

@popehilarious is she refusing all breastfeeds? Are you able to express at all and sneak some into food/cereals? I would be reluctant to advise formula as it's a very different taste and your lo may well flatly refuse that as well. Encourage foods high in calcium like yoghurts cheese foods made with milk also calcium is found in various sources such as fortified cereals. Offer some multi vitamin drops if not already doing so but try not to stress it can be a phase related to teething etc

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow very ignorant and insulting do you generalise against other professionals or are us health visitors the lucky ones?

At 9 months milk was only morning and night for us with night feeds too. But my children preferred snacks to boob by then.
I know lots of people whose children were more happy with your routine.

My HV told me at my 5 day check that feeding on demand would make my DS obese 🙈 so I choose to ignore them.

Her advice about cucumber snacks is more understandable given that you asked about help for potential constipation.
I've done both, gradually cut out feeds until they self weaned at one with my older two ( still gave them milk during the day though, follow on then cow's). My youngest was left to choose when to drop feeds and just kept going alongside food and got really really fat, he weaned at three and slimmed down very gradually. Feeding to sleep also gave him tooth decay, just a warning.
In other words, a compromise is probably best and a few extra veggie snacks will help with constipation.

Rubbish. Ignore her.

What you're doing sound absolutely fine.

Sounds to me like she's a bit confused about how BF works.

Even in my day, back in 1980, when I was BF my babies no one suggested I cut down their milk at that age; although, would have ignored them if they had.

My DD is still BF her, just turned one year old. He's eating proper meals and he still has his breast milk, although he's naturally feeding less as time goes on.

Apart from anything else, at 8 months, your baby still needs all the other aspects of BF e.g. the comfort and so on.

anothernamejeeves this was several years ago so a bit academic really, I did do exactly that re putting expressed milk into porridge. Yes dc just refused all feeds, I found myself waking him when he stirred at night to see if he would sleepily latch on, which he did a bit but never resumed properly in the day.
He had loads of dairy so wasn't worried about calcium, but wouldn't drink cow's milk neat. I was just really surprised that the Hv was so breezy about him not needing any form of milk, I'd assumed he'd go on to formula until 1. And all my friends asked what milk he was drinking. But he was fine just on solids.

I think the "Food before 1 is just for fun" made me very scared that he was missing out on essential breastmilk nutrients and only having "fun" instead of being fed "properly" for those two months between 10 and 12 months!
He loves drinking milk now and eats almost anything!