10 months & milk...

[superbabysmummy]

Hi Mumsnetters,

DD is 9 months, 2 weeks so nearly 10 months. She's happy and looks very healthy but is REALLY hit & miss with her milk, the littlest thing will put her off completely so he's not having the recommended amount of milk for her age.

I work 4 days out of 5 so don't have the option to stay in and remove all external stimulation to give her the best chance of taking it but am a bit concerned about it. She eats well and has a fairly balanced diet IMO.

What do other mums with 10 months old babies do in respect to their babies feed times? I am wondering if I can make some subtle changes that will encourage her to take more milk...

This is an example of what we currently do:

6ish, milk - she takes about 100ml
6.30/7ish - weetabix with some of the remaining milk
11 milk feed - she takes anywhere between 40 & 180ml
12 - lunch, chicken, mash and veggies followed by fruit based desert
3- offer milk but hardly ever has any

• considering dropping this bottle however always thought the 11am would go first, would other mums drop the 11 and preserve with the 3 or drop the 3 as it's the one she is refusing? 4.30 - tea, scrambled egg on toast, petit filous

1. - bedtime bottle, anything between 20ml and 200ml

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what she drinks of her milk & when. We try and give her lots of water throughout the day so she is getting fluid.

Please let me know what you do, I need to make some changes,

If you increase yoghurt and cheese she can still get a good calcium intake. Have you tried making smoothies? That might help too.

My DS is a bit younger than yours (8mo) but I started weaning at 5mo so he is a little ahead of himself, iyswim?

Anyway, about a month ago, he started doing what your LO is doing: hardly taking any milk at any of his feeds, and being a bit of a nightmare with it all. My HV told me to cut out the mid morning (11am) feed, and to up the quantities in the other feeds. I was skeptical and very nervous of doing it, cos i thought if I dropped that feed he would be having almost nothing.

Anyway: it worked. After a few days of stopping the mid morning feed, he started having a bigger bottle on waking (7oz....sorry, don't know in ml), and then a similar big bottle (7oz) at 2.30pm/3pm when he wakes up from his post-lunch nap. He wakes up from his nap very thirsty and necks the whole bottle, because aside from a few mouthfuls of water form his tippy cup at lunchtime, he hasn't drunk anything since early morning. NB in this hot weather I also offer water in tippy cup throughout the day but he spills most of it! He also then has a 6oz bottle at bedtime.

I think once they're fully weaned and having 3 meals a day with pudding, they don't need to be offered so many milk feeds. In fact, I know a lot of my mummy-friends now only feed their 8-9mo babies on waking and at bedtime, and they have 2 very large bottles per day (8oz each). My HV also told me not to get too worried about the '20oz of milk a day' malarkey, and as long as they're having over 12oz per day and lots of extra dairy in their diet (yoghurts, cheese, full fat cows milk on cereal etc etc) then it's fine. I chilled out a lot about it once I spoke to a good friend who BFs her 10mo baby....she only BFs in the morning and at night, and trusts that her baby is getting what she needs. I think there is much less stress and pressure on BFing mums when it comes to weaning and milk feeds!

Our routine is:

0630am - 7oz bottle
(Nap at 0830)
12 noon - lunch, sandwich, veg sticks, yoghurt pudding, water
(nap 1pm)
2.30pm ish - 7oz bottle, wakes up from his napping wanting it
5pm - dinner, spag bol, or cottage pie or similar, fruit pudding
7pm - 6oz bedtime bottle

I fully expect that he will also drop the mid afternoon bottle before he turns one yo. Then I will just make sure he has a big bottle on waking and before bed.

Really great info! Thank you for taking the time to write... Going to try dropping that 11am feed, makes sense to me