7 month old - I'm getting it all wrong

[yummypopcorn]

DS 7 Months sleeps 6pm till 11pm then wants dream feed. Back to bed until 5am wants a feed, back to bed until 7am.

I have been doing BLW but he is eating very little and nursery have commented that he needs milk much more than the other 7 month olds.

He is only sleeping for 1/2 hour in the morning and 1/2 in the afternoon.

DS1 was never like this - he slept all the time!

Where am I going wrong? Shall I stop BLW and go to mush??
Help!

Cant you do BLW and mush? That way he gets more volume of food but still gets to practice feeding himself.

At 7 months both mine were not v. good at feding themselves, just sucked things really, but they ate loads of mashed stuff as they were clearly hungry.

They are now 3 (today) and 4 and don't seem to have been too damaged by the mush feeding

Happy birthday!! Thanks yes seems obvious to combine BLW and mush.

Does his sleep sounds about right?

I combine blw + mush with DD2, who has just turned 6 months. I yearn for the sleep pattern you describe - although she does have longer naps during the day. I know that she will be waking several times tonight.

I just mush-fed DD1 and she was a pretty good sleeper by 6/7 months.

Dunno what to suggest really other than to perhaps do as hairybaby suggests and combine blw with a load of pureed stuff to fill him up.

Sleep cycles fluctuate. Also try and remember that each child is different; just as a example, I used to come in from play school and have a nap, and my brother dropped all his day time sleeps by the time he was one!

Please don't worry - how long have you been weaning for? Milk provides the majority of calories until a year anyway, so the fact he is taking more milk than some of the others is really nothing to be worried about.

HTH a bit.

Blimey, that sounds really good to me. What part of it are you worried about??! He's pretty much sleeping through (albeit with a dreamfeed). So he's having 14 hours a day sleep, not too shabby. And he's really early on with weaning, I wouldn't expect a lot at this stage.

Thanks all. I think the nursery are a bit shocked by BLW and find it a bit odd!!

I have a 7 mo and I weaned him at around 4 months. He has 3 meals a day of mush my homemade puree and lots of finger food. 3 Bottles during the day and breastfeeds during the night and first thing in the morning.

He has about 2 half hour naps during the day, wakes at least 3 times a night and I hold no real hope of him sleeping through. Oh and he wakes at around 5.30 most mornings and is raring to go.

I would keep with what you want to do as in my opinion and experience (I have a nearly 4yo who was the same) what my children eat doesn't make a blind bit of difference to their sleeping habits.

definitely give some mush. Banana and weetabix is a great, filling breakfast and its very easy to boil up potatao, leek, parsnip and carrot and then mash it all up together too. Doing this doesn't mean they won;t be able to eat finger foods but it does really increase the volume they can get.

I BLW my DS (almost a year now) and his milk intake stayed pretty high for a long time after we started solids, even though he was pretty good at eating "real" food from the start. The "food is fun until they're one" is a good thing to remember. And that milk contains more calories than solids (apart from avocado and banana apparantly....). So don't worry about him having milk at nursery.
Your DS is sleeping better than mine did at that point, and other friends of mine who did puree (all bar except one did actually) still had issues with night waking.
FYI my DS started to sleep through most nights form about 8 months, though I relate that as much to his activity levels (he's a tasmanian devil!) as to his food intake.

Give mush if you want to and it makes you feel better / more confident. But for me I liked that I could be relaxed about how much solid food DS would / wouldn't take as I knew that he got all he needed from his milk, as he was at the same time discovering the new tastes and textures of solid food at his own pace, no pressure.

What lovechildofBjork and SirBoobalot said.

Sounds like the staff at your nursery should educate themselves a bit more about BLW. It's becoming nearly as common as traditional weaning now. They should make it their business to know about it.

Thanks again ladies. Done a bit of both today.....worked just fine actually. THANKS SO MUCH!!