BF at a year old

[naturalbaby]

My baby is nearly 12months and has 1 or 2 bottles some days, otherwise ebf. If I have a day of ebf he has a few feeds during the day, very quick and doesn't seem to get enough to fill him up so he gets a drink of water and a snack as well. If I offer a bottle instead he'll fill up on 7oz and not want anything else (unless we're all eating exciting looking biscuits!).

He still has a good feed first thing in the morning but all the other bf don't feel like they're really counting as a proper milk feed any more - obviously they count but they're not filling him up, or he's not feeding enough to fill up and then needing a snack.

So I was wondering about other bf babies at a year and how this compares - i don't know anyone else who bf's this long, did I read earlier it's 1% or mothers?!

7oz is a lot more than most babies will take during a breastfeed at any age - they don't need the same volume of breastmilk as formula/cow milk. My ds never managed more than 3-4oz of cow's milk at a time even after we stopped breastfeeding.

I think at 12 months he was having 4 bfs a day - first thing, mid-morning, mid-afternoon and bedtime. He had water with meals and a snack in the afternoon as well.

That's the strange thing, it's never felt like he was having as much milk as bottle fed babies the same age where having so I've always been a bit surprised at the volume of milk babies drink out a bottle. My older kids rarely manage to drink that quantity of juice/water/milk in one go either.

I'm kind of wondering if it's better to fill him up on a bottle of formula because the alternative is filling up on whatever sugary snack I'm having with the older kids (usually biscuits!). He's really hungry, tired, grizzly at the moment so it's frustrating that a big bottle of formula can keep him happy for a few hours but a bf can't.

How about a breastfeed and a banana?

Older baby's get a lot of milk in a short feed, by wanting more of something else he's probably just following his natural instinces to wean off some of his milk.

Add formula at 12months seems a little odd really as they would normaly be on cows milk by then.

Another point is BF is actaully gets higher in fat content as your baby get's older so the volume doesn't need to increase. By filling him up with a large bottle your streaching his tummy and he's getting used to having a larger volume, this could be leading to him not feeling full enough after a BF.