Is this ok? 13 month old bf

[sevenbubbles]

Tonight is night 3 where I have not given my ds a bedtime feed. He is ebf and we have been down to morning and bedtime for about 2 months.

His weight is fine and he now thankfully sleeps through.

I accidentally realised that he was happy to go to sleep without the bedtime feed - he feeds manically in the morning though!!

Is it ok that we are now down to one feed? I don't give him formula or cows milk to drink but he has lots of yoghurt, cheese etc ands bit of cows milk on cereal.

Basically if I drop the bedtime feed should I be replacing it either with cows milk or another bf earlier in the day?

A 12- 23m old needs approx 580kcals of complementary foods and 313kcals of breast milk - using 75kcals per 100ml that would be approx 415mls of breastmilk each day (these figures are for industrialised countries and are from here).

Do you think your 13m has over 400mls of breastmilk in one feed (that would be about 14oz)? Dairy could substitute some of it though as breastmilk is not just calories, fat and calcium (it also contains immune factors, growth factors, hormones and other substances not found in food) I would be hesitant to say cows' milk is an adequate swap for breastmilk.

Also, only one feed a day could mean that your DS doesn't continue feeding longer term (this might be okay for you if you are planning on ceasing bfing soon-ish) but if you did want to bf until 2y or for longer it may be difficult to maintain his interest if you are only doing that one feed a day.

Older children manage fine on one feed a day or even less like once a week, but it seems mean something different to them by that point and they have had perhaps years of feeding as they have needed to so feeding less is a natural progression IYSWIM?

Milk is the main source of nutrition until 12 months so that doesn't sound enough for just 4 weeks later. Dd is 1 months and feeds when she wakes, at 6pm when I get home from work, at bedtime and twice a night.