Dropping feeds and weaning: advice about apparently diminishing thirst

[Millymolliemandy]

I've EBF my daughter who is 8 months. We are doing well with weaning and are now on three meals a day, mostly spoon fed but some self feeding too. In the last 5 days she seems to have radically dropped the amount of feeds per day, and I can't work out whether this is because she is teething or whether we have replaced some milk with solids - I know that this is the general idea but thought that BM would be her primary source of nutrition for the first year. What is actually concerning me is that the number of wet nappies seems to have gone down, from very full to much lighter, which is indicating that she is certainly not taking on as much as she usually does.

I am a first time Mum and because my daughter was early and very small have always probably overfed her - with lots of frequent feeds night and day. What seems to be different now is that sometimes she really doesn't seemt to want the boob, even if I kind of try to force it on her. We weaned early (she is actually just under 6 months corrected) as is in line with prem baby weaning advice so she has been having solids for 2 months now.

I guess what I would like some advice about is; does is seems like the milk feed dropping off is a natural result of more food or teething or both, and should I be worried about the fewer less wet nappies? Any advice or thoughts would be gratefully recieved.

What I probably should have added is that I offer water with every meal and she is interested but I think mostly in biting the spout and pouring water down herself... Think the most that actually goes down is a few sips.

If she is having too much complementary food then her appetite for bfing may have decreased. Are you bfing her approx an hour before solids (doesn't need to be exact an hour though)?

I keep posting this but hey, if the situation warrants it....

6-8m need 130 kcals of complementary foods and 485 kcals from milk (approx 650ml of bm at 75kcals per 100ml) total 615 kcals a day

9-11m need 310 kcals of complementary foods and 376 kcals from milk (approx 500ml of bm at 75kcals per 100ml) total 686 kcals a day.

12-23m need 580 kcals of complementary foods and 314 kcals from milk (approx 420ml of bm at 75kcals per 100ml) total 894 kcals a day.

Full details here on page 18. Pleae note that there is different values for industrialised/developed countries and developing countries. I have listed the industrialised/developed countries figures.

As you can see there is a decrease in bm needed at about 9m but still only a drop of approximately 150mls (which might be one or two feeds a day) and as you say she is a prem baby, even if you started weaning early to combat low iron etc, the calories she needs would still be more in line with her corrected age rather than birth age.

On a random note have you changed nappy size or brand recently? That might make a difference in how wet her nappy feels. Is the wee dark or light coloured? (Try sticking a cotton wool ball in the nappy to see the colour).

Thanks TruthSweet, that is realy helpful; I think the early weaning prem thing might have confused me a bit and yes she probably is eating too much proper food at the expense of the boob, so will try to slightly decrease the amounts. Out of interest, do you think I should be trying to get her to take more water (spoon etc?) I am just aware that water replacing milk or food is bad in terms of calories and as she is still little (9th centile) try to keep the cals up as much as poss.

BM is 88% water, so as long as you are bfing on demand and not just offering foods like cream crackers or breadsticks she should be fine with sips of water with her meals.

If you are very worried about fluid intake, adding extra (breast)milk or fruit/veg to her foods can help (e.g. making her porridge slightly thinner/adding more milk to mashed potatoes/adding extra fruit puree to yoghurt).

Also balancing out drier foods with moister foods could be a way to increase fluid intake - e.g. rice cakes dipped in fruit puree, par-boiled carrot sticks dipped in soft cheese (you could make it a bit softer by adding a little milk to it too) with a cracker.