7mth old teatime meltdown

[beargrass]

Any advice? My 7 month old is practically textbook most of the day/easy to get back on track if things don't work out but the end of the day is near disaster. Teatime meltdowns seem to be becoming a thing. Her day:

7-ish wake up, bottle, porridge, toast/banana
Play
9: sleep for about 45 mins
Play/go out
11:30 or so (depends): lunch
12: sleep for a couple of hours
THEN...she might have some milk between 2:30 and 3 but this is quite difficult as she's gone off milk and is very alert so it's hard to get her to take any. Today instead I gave her some yoghurt because she loves it and otherwise (without this change) she was going from the morning to about 5 with (in my view) not enough to keep her going

4-ish...nap. But for how long? No one knows though I don't let her sleep past 5. Or she makes it through without one, but I don't know how because she is obviously flagging by this point.

5-ish..teatime and meltdown. Actual screaming and tears but she must be hungry. I've tried quite a range of finger foods because for a while, those kept her distracted while I gave her dinner but not any more, it's straight into meltdown. Sometimes I can pull her back and unfortunately now I've been much less successful, and she just cries for about an hour. I just can't understand why/what's going wrong.

She's always been quite a hungry baby and she's always been keen on sleep so I am quite puzzled. Does she need/want an afternoon nap or not? It doesn't seem to make much difference to her evening mood. Should I pull the tea forward a bit? I used to do this when she was just on milk - because of her mood but all that seemed to have been in the past.

???

Have you tried giving her milk before finger food? At this age they get most of their nutrition from milk so if she's hungry she won't be interested in the chewable food as much, or at least that's what I found. Food at that age is more about learning how to chew and taste.

Re going off milk- have you thought about it being a lactose thing? What with the increase in cows milk in yoghurt, porridge, cheese etc, if she's on formula the increase in lactose might be hurting her tummy. With my LO gradually stepping up her dairy helped, it was the shock of so much new food giving her digestive upsets.

Mine does this if she's really hungry and frustrated that the finger food isn't going in quick enough. I give her some natural yoghurt that she would have had as "pudding" first and it calms her right down and then she gets on with tea. If that doesn't work, I give her a quick breast feed but the yoghurt usually works.

At 7 months I would be giving more milk

In your case:
7am milk
8am breakfast
9-10 Nap
Milk after
11.30 short Nap
1pm lunch
1.30-3 nap
Milk and snack
4.30-5-5.30 nap
6pm dinner
7pm milk
8pm bed

Thanks. It is just natural yoghurt. And I've tried so hard with milk but she just isn't interested. Not at all. The most I can get down her is in the morning and a lot of that is in her porridge.

I may try yoghurt plus broccoli (fave finger food) before her dinner. I'm not fussed what way round it is, it's just so odd as she usually is so hungry and keen to get food inside!

...and she was on colief but I weaned her off it a while ago. So maybe it's lactose. Maybe it should be that I'm more on top of finger foods before her dinner..?

I've started adding a meal /large snack in before afternoon sleep. Otherwise come " teatime" there is hell to play, and there often is anyway.

Sleep is around four for about half an hour, but it is on the school run, so options for a deep sleep aren't good.

I would give a nap between four and half four, with a view to being up by five if you want him in bed for seven /half seven.

I have a seven and a half month old and between last nap and bedtime he is always grumpy and just wants to go back to sleep tbh. We don't really do dinner yet but I think it might have to be earlier than his last nap and maybe just a snack/supper before bed. They don't really have to eat at traditional mealtimes when they are this little IMO! If she's not interested in food then would she take milk?

Thanks all. I'm going to try a day of less dairy. Also a snack in the afternoon. Just don't want to put her off her tea as otherwise I fear nighttime hunger wakings. Once you've dropped the dead of night feeding, you just don't want to go back

Thanks everyone. I did three days with adding colief for her afternoon milk, which made a difference. Then she was upset after her lunch nap/cutting it short because she was upset. So I added colief first thing and I've cut a lot of extra diary. Seems to have made a difference. Will take her to doc's and see what they say. At least I can go with a diary and not be told to try all the things I've already tried. Hoping that could speed up a referral. Thanks again