Just been reading the BFing/solids threads on here, and now I'm worried!

[LittleWaveyLines]

Well, I worry about everything anyway.... :)

But my 9 month DD hasn't dropped any bfs yet. Our day looks like this...

5am bf
6am bf
7am bf
8am breakfast (small amount cereal and some fruit like 1/2 banana or nectarine)
9am bf
10am ish 30 breast feed to sleep for nap
12am lunch (never eats that much but I try to make sure there's a protein source)
1pm bf
2pm ish bf to sleep for nap
Refeed to sleep to get a longer nap
5pm bf shortly followed by
dinner (snacky foods like toast, or small amount of jacket spud, with some green veg)
7pm HUGE feed to sleep
9pm bf
11pm bf
1am bf
3am bf

...and repeat..... this is a lot of breastfeeding for a 9 month old isn't it?

She's got a cold atm and didn't feed much early this morning as she had a blocked nose - well I ended up soaked and rock hard - had to express loads off to get comfortable!

Your day sounds like mine and DS is 12 months!

Hopefully Truthsweet will come along she has a great thing from WHO about feeding and breast milk.

Would type more but DS has decided to have boob and nap instead of dinner bath bed.

Ah a bit reassured now that we are not totally weird in this.... would prefer fewer night feeds TBH

Love your name BTW hazchem! Is it job related?

But if she needs it she needs it -especially when she has a cold! Nothing wrong with giving lots of breastmilk and she will eat more complementary foods when she needs it. She's not going to starve on 13 bfs and some food a day

If you want to (when she is better) encourage more complementary foods you can offer more at each meal or offer elevenses or an afternoon snack (say a chunk of cheese or a bit of ham if you don't think she is getting enough protein or a bit of banana [a 1/3 is a toddler serving unless you have the tiny bananas!] or some steamed apple slices).

This is the World Health Organisations recommendations on complementary feeds :-

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. Please 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 difference of about 150ml of milk in what an 8m needs and what a 9m needs but there will be some transition - you'd get engorged and possibly plugged ducts/mastitis if baby suddenly dropped taking 150mls of milk the day they turned 9m! Plus as your DD is unwell she is probably bfing extra for the comfort and for all the good stuff in BM.

No it's a play on another nickname i have and for even has a terrible rap to go with it :)

I too would like less night feeds but am too lazy to do anything about it.

Oh God - am I notorious for posting the WHO guidelines I just like how clear cut it is and how specific it is that these are the recs. for developed countries (so no-one can go 'Well the WHO only deals with poor people in poor countries not the UK so our babies don't need X, Y, Z' ) and just how important BM is to babies diet.

I'll shut up now (but mainly because it is bedtime for the DDs)

Milk is their main source of nutrients until they are one. But I found dd only reduced night feeds if I didn't feed after three, gave her dinner at about 1930 and then a big pre sleep feed. Bedtime in our house is 2100. Milk at 0630, up at 0730 and breakfast at 0800.

Notorious in a good way You posted them for me a few days ago and it helped

Thanks Truth.

What I have posted is her normal amount - not increased due to a cold....

(protein is a worry to me as she refuses to eat meat or cheese, will eat a bit of tinned fish only - but then I worry about the salt content! She occasionally eats lentils. Haven't tried quorn yet...)

Ah well, I suppose she's just a boob monster!

(She would eat her weight in bananas if I let her. Or flapjacks..... neither of which I think it's a great idea to eat too much of....)

I think she must be taking more milk than that above though - and she's only 9th centile.... mind you her father is annoying in that he eats about 5 meals a day, plus snacks, and is a beanpole (grrrrr I have to exercise like a lunatic to even come close to half his daily intake...) maybe the lucky little thing has inherited his metabolism!

Still fine - BM has protein in it admittedly not as much as cow's milk but then you aren't bfing a calf so it's not a huge worry

My 3 on average had a bf before and after every meal plus extras too and then a good few times at night (inc. a monster feed when they woke at 5-6am until it was time to get up) so probably 12 feeds or more until at least 12m. I didn't think it was abnormal but then after a few years of bfing non-stop you just get used to sticking them on and carrying on with your day (aka MNing).

God no, that sounds fine! :) Totally normal for them to feed loads past 6/9 months, IMO.

It's also normal for them to drop feeds, it's a very broad spectrum - don't think that because lots of babies drop feeds that this is what they "should" do.

Also:

In the second year (12-23 months), 448 mL of breastmilk provides:
29% of energy requirements
43% of protein requirements
36% of calcium requirements
75% of vitamin A requirements
76% of folate requirements
94% of vitamin B12 requirements
60% of vitamin C requirements
? Dewey 2001

Ha yes! If someone looked at when I post it usually coincides with bfing!

Thank you Truth - really appreciate the reassurance

Oooh that's interesting Bertie - but I wonder why it's so low on calcium? Where else does the toddler get calcium, esp if not eating dairy?

Green leafy vegetables mainly though a lot of meat has a calcium content especially if you do nose-to-tail eating (and possibly eating/gnawing on bones or cartilage) if you want to look at it from an anthropological view point.

Not terribly palatable but hey, toddlers eat a lot of revolting things (mainly old forgotten fluffy biscuits from under the sofa)

Hmmm I was told I used to crunch snails, shells and all - wonder if I was supplementing a calcium deficiency?

Well I never knew that green leafy veg was a calcium source - learn something new every day! :)

Calcium content of veg here. Lots of obscure ones on there but if you are a hunter gatherer you wouldn't be eating vast amounts of any one thing (like my children and peas, sweetcorn and carrots ) but eating lots of different things.

LWL, I hope you don't mind if I jump on the bandwagon here, but I have a similar question. My 8-month-old doesn't bf quite as often as yours, but our paediatrician seems to think he's having too much milk and not enough food. A typical day for us is:

8.30 am bf
10.00 oatmeal porridge made with breastmilk, with a bit of fruit (never more than 2oz)
nap
13.00 bf
14.00 lunch (puréed veg and meat) again 2 oz max, often less
nap
17.30 bf
19.00 dinner (puréed fruit, yoghurt, or meat & veg - depending how much he ate for lunch)
21.00 bf
bed
3.30 bf (or if we co-sleep bf on and off all night -very like your schedule)
bed

He will also eat a few snacks throughout the day, like a baby biscuit or a few pieces of mandarin orange.

He is putting on weight at a fairly normal pace (now) but he is very short for his age (62cm) and I am worried after reading the WHO guidelines (thanks Truthsweet) that he is not eating enough solids/getting enough nutrients. I put vitamins in his food, but the iron supplements taste horrible and he just spits it out.

I am so tired of worrying (we had major feeding issues when he was born), all advice appreciated.

If you are worried about calories intake then upping his fat intake might be something to consider - i.e. making mash potato with cheese/butter/cream, home made chips (par-boiled potato sticks then put on an oiled baking tray with olive oil brushed on top and baked in a very hot oven - you can freeze the excess or use sweet potato for a change), fruit puree with full fat Greek yoghurt, chunks of full fat mature cheddar, etc.

He does only need 130kcals on top of his bfs so you are aiming for ~45kcal a meal (if you offer 3 meals a day) so a tablespoon (30mls) of Greek yoghurt is 35kcals mixed with 1/6th of a banana mashed (15kcals) is 50kcals. Calorie dense foods mixed with vitamin/mineral rich foods (either mushed together or served as part of the same meal).

If you give meat try giving the dark meat from chicken/turkey not the white meant as the dark meat is more nutritious (higher in iron and calories for a start!) - roast a few chicken legs in olive oil and either give one whole to him or cut into strips (depends on his hand/eye co-ordination or rather hand/mouth!) lots of nutrients and fat/kcals.

Also look at his food over the week not over a meal or day. His diet doesn't need to be perfectly balanced for each meal just over the week. Plus BM is high in kcals, high in vits/minerals, high in growth hormones and anti-bodies, etc, etc, it's not empty kcals - it's not like his main food is sweets or water!

I am not a dietician just a mum who had her DD3 on a very high kcal diet after bronchiolitis (10 bouts in her 1st year) meant she went from 91st%ile to 2%ile and was on the 'double cream diet' (1-2 pints of double cream over a week added to her food and butter, cheese and Greek yoghurt as well!) for 6m to get her to bulk up a bit. She is still fairly slender now at 2.5y but the paediatrician isn't worried about her weight gain now.

Thanks so much for this. I am not really worried about his calorie intake, the dr even implied the other day that he was overweight (for his height), it's his overall nutrition that concerns me. The WHO guidelines seem to say that he should be eating around 200g solid food per meal an we are not at anything like that. I did try food first bf after, and he was eating far more, but then he started to reject the breast altogether and was badly constipated.

If you are worried about his nutrient intake then continuing bfing alongside nutrient dense foods (e.g. bananas, avocados, dark meats such as dark chicken meat/beef, eggs, oily fish, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables) would be the sensible option. Has your DS been tested for any deficiencies?

I (on a fairly regular basis) get tested for Folic acid & B12 deficiency due to previous anaemias of these vits so it's definitely possible to get vit/iron deficiency testing done - if your Paed. thinks your son is overweight but undernourished then surely the best solution would be to find out what he is undernourished in so you could target his diet accordingly.

He may just be a short child/adult - is there a family history of being smaller than average? Or could he be about to have a growth spurt - I know mine plump up just before then stretching out and looking skinny again.

I am not sure where you got the 200g of solid foods for an 8m from as 130kcals/200g = 0.65kcal per gram (energy density) and the rec. min energy density of complementary weaning foods is 0.8kcals per gram (130kcals/0.8=162.5g of food) (see pg 21 of the link I posted earlier for full details).

At 9m the weight of food would be about 390g per day though the more energy dense the food is the less the baby needs to consume. i.e. you need to eat more carrots than cheesy mashed potato to get the same amount of kcals.