Food routine for 8 month old

[papillon]

Ok - so I am Ms non-routine and yes I admit it an Earth Mother. Old habits die hard and so now I am becoming ever more consciously aware that dd needs to eating more food. I need to get this organised around her sleep. How long is your child up before a meal is delivered at this age?Did not know where to post this, but seeing as food is the ultimate aim...

I am trying to establish as of today shorter day sleeps (1,5 hrs) ... she can sleep up to 3 hours sometimes!! but usually 2 hours. This is the rough plan...

wake 6.30ish
breakfast
sleep 9.00am (bf)
wake 10.30
lunch
sleep 1.00pm (bf)
wake 2.30
sleep 5.00 (bf)
wake 5.30
dinner
sleep 7.30-8pm (bf)

I am hoping this will improve the night sleep also as she is rock solid on waking twice a night and will not go back to sleep without a bf.
She was a reluctant eater to begin with, and now that she is starting to show interest I feel I finally need to have more structure in her day.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

not sure this is v helpful, but her's our routine, for comparison. Ds is 7 months.

5.30am breakfast in bed when dh has gone to work (milk and food).

Back to sleep for an hour or so in my bed.

Up by 7am and playing.

9.30am to 10amish nap of about 30 mins.

Lunch at 12 (food and water or juice).

Pm nap varies, let him sleep when he likes, but usually about 3pm. About 2 hours.

Tea 6.30pm (food and milk).

Bed 7.30pm to 8pm. He usually wakes up once or twice, but just because he's lost his dummy, so we shove it back in and he drops straight back off. I know I'm a bad mother for using a dummy, but thats life.

HTH.

Thanks Ixel - wow your ds does not sleep as much as my little power house sleeper!! dd will be 8 months on the 29th so close in age to your ds.

dd wants to get ready for bed about 2.15 hours after waking. I bf her then put her into bed and she goes off to sleep. Any longer than that and she turns into grumpy britches. So I am having problems with especially the evening meal as she is often tired. Perhaps if this arrangement today goes okay things will improve.

If I let her sleep longer the last nap is a pain... being around 6pm which is getting late when I want her in bed at 7.30pm... put her in bed last nite at 6.45pm but dh had hardly come through the door and so misses seeing her.

Ds actually fell asleep right after his last bottle last night, which is a first! So I put him to bed in his T shirt, with a yogurty face to save waking him . Bad parenting!
I empathise with the bedtime thing. Dh works shifts, so doesn't see him at all one week, and just has time to feed him and put him to bed the other week. Its getting so that he wont drop off if its dh doing bedtime now, which I want to nip in the bud if I can!

dd, 8 months has solids 3 times a day, eats about equivalent of one 4mth-jar of home cooked food at each meal
.
Routine:

up at 7.30am, some milk
solids at 9.30am
nap at 10.30am, for 2 hours
up at 12.30
solids 1.30 or 2pm, for 2-3hours
solids at 6-6.30pm
bed for night at 8pm

drink of formula at random intervals throughout the day, as and when she wants some. i think because she was BF she is in a habit of drink-on-demand, not a whole bottle in one go.

also, since she stopped BF, she will go into cot for nap/nighttime awake...doesnt has to be fed to sleep...yipeeee (ds always had to be fed asleep and always woke for drink in night)

forgot to say, solids are at almost exactky same time each day.
everything else can vary from day-to-day, depending on madam!

Here's our routine, ds is 7 months and it seems to be working for us (well, for now anyway). These timings are 'ish', so if his morning nap starts later then I put him down for lunchtime sleep later, some days it can be more like 12.45 - 2.45. He used to have a nap at 5pm but if he gets 3 hours before then he doesn't need it. I do make his tea on the sloppy side as it's easier all round. He sleeps through and doesn't wake up, generally. If he does then DH sorts him out otherwise he expects a BF from me which then knackers the whole of the following morning.

7.00 BF
8.00 Breakfast
8.50 BF top-up
9.00 - 9.45/10.00 Sleep
11.00 BF if he wants
11.45 Lunch + water
12.30 - 2.30 Sleep
2.45 BF
5.00 BF if he wants
5.30 Tea
6.45 BF
7.00 Bed

my ds is nine months and hes bf around 8
breackfast nine
dinner 1
tea 5
supper 7
bf 8-8:30
bed its the only way we can get him to sleep through the nights

here's ours if it's any help - DS2 - 10m
Any time between 3 and 6 am - bf (hopefully goes back to sleep if before 6)
8.30ish - breakfast
sometime after this - nap for about 40 mins if I'm lucky
11.30ish - bf depending on what we're doing, sometimers doesn't have one here.
12.30 - lunch
3.30 - bf followed by nap, ususally in pushchair or on Mummy. (sometimes this is reversed - nap first then bf)
5.15 - tea
6.30 bath, bf and bed.

Very little routine but manages to survive on it!

Thanks everyone for the routines. Really appreciated.

I bf her alot which competes with food i guess. But even if she is hungry she is often not very keen on food and wants boob.

I think I might try and keep her up alittle longer between naps (if possible) so that she does not have the third nap. It seems along time to keep her up though before bed and when she is grumpy she don´t want to eat food just boob!

DS is nearly 7 months and finally seems to be getting some sort of a routine.....but it's not always there!

Wake 7:00 ish on a good day (anywhere from 5 on a bad day) and BF
8:00 ish breakfast
9:00 sleep sometimes with BF first, sometimes he refuses and puts his thumb in his mouth instead!
10:30-11:00 wake up may have BF if didn't at 9:00
12:00-12:30 ish lunch (within 2 hours of waking or will be grumpy) Water is offered.
12:30-1:00 ish sleep (sometimes with BF as per first nap)
2:00-2:30 wake up and go and do entertaining activity.
4:00 will probably have BF - tends to get grumpy. May sleep in pushchair, car, or on me, or may not.
5:00-5:30 May have supper, may have sleep if didn't before.
6:00 - 6:30 Bedtime routine of bath, BF and cot starts
7:00 Generally in cot asleep
10:00 ish dream feed which I am thinking of dropping but worried about the middle of the night wake up which might happen!

He ends up having 5 or 6 BF a day and quite a bit of solid food - not sure when and how much I should cut down on BF and increase food but I'm sure I'll get there eventually

PS - I know what you mean about the being grumpy and wanting BF rather than food - DS is partcularly like that if he is tired. This seems to happen when he's been awake for longer than 2 hours, although he can stretch a bit longer in the afternoon