gina ford and health visitor say complete opposite of when to offer solids, very confused new mum!!

[alibo]

I have had gina ford book of weaning strongly recommended, and ds feeds at roughly at the times of her routines in CLBB. ds is 5 months, not started weaning yet, as only just started taking more than 25oz milk/day. gf book places emphasis on solids being offered always after milk for first 2 months so they only take what they need. health visitor says solids should be offered say at breakfast ,dinner and tea (all 3 eventually) with milk in between solids. ds is not napping well at the moment and always needs to go to bed straight after 11.15am ish feed, at the moment would be too tired to take some solids after this feed. Same at 6pm feed also, is ready for bed by 6.30 and gets very tired. Can anyone advise on which approach worked for them, especially those with a "non hungry" baby?

I personally would offer milk first. But I will freely admit that I am now inclined to go against whatever any health visitor recommends.

My rule of thumb is, that when sources of information disagree violently, you can be sure that ultimately it doesn't really matter!
The 'official' weaning guidance in birth to 5 is much more relaxed about timing of solids wrt milk. For first tastes, the best thing is to make sure they are not frantically hungry or too tired to be interested. Do what suits you best - you'll know the time of day your baby is most likely to be interested.
Having said that, I quite like the GF weaning book as a general guide. My babies have been very hungry and keen on solids so while at the beginning I did milk first, I think within about 4-6 weeks or so I was probably doing something more like milk between meals.

Just started weaning and kinda following GF. I always offer milk first. DS takes approx 4oz and then a bit of veg & a bit of fruit. I always offer more milk after feed but he only takes about 1oz. I would offer water or juice but DS is refusing any other form of liquid
I too am getting more and more annoyed by HV's. I think you really have to go with what YOU think is right and also keep asking Mumsnet - I DO!!

Agree go with your instinct but in general something recent in print will have been checked and I prefer that to verbal and often contradictory hv advice.

Agree with "make sure they are not frantically hungry or too tired to be interested". That's true if they are too hungry they don't eat just get frustrated. Another thing is that during the first months of weaning most of the nutrients come from the milk so it's important to make sure she is getting the milk first, as they grow older you may adjust according to your baby's preferences. If I can see DS is not going to eat his meal I would save the milk until the end (but that is know that he is over a year old and getting most nutrients from solids).

I also forgot to mention that DS is not motivated by food at all and it is a bit of a battle somedays (like today) Sometimes I think he would prefer to suck his thumb than have a bottle!
And because he's a boy he will never understand the stress he has put his mummy through!!

Milk first until at least 6 months of age as it is a better source of food at THAT age. Solids become main meal later...

alibo, my dd was (and is) a small eater. She's 21 months now and I generally find that if I give her milk first she won't eat any solids. At your Ds's age she really only experimented with the odd bit of food and was still mostly drinking milk but I thought it was important to get her used to different foods and textures so persisted anyway. I don't see how you can offer milk in between solids without interfering with sleep times. At 'meal times' I used to offer solids with milk, as she was breastfed I gave her one breast first, some solids, then the second breast so I guess you could do that with a bottle too - give half the bottle, some solids, then the other half. That way your Ds won't be too hungry or too full for the solids.

Incidentally my dd has never drunk as much as 25oz of milk a day in her life. I know it's difficult to gauge when breastfeeding but she always had small feeds and when she moved onto bottles I could see that she usually had between 16-20oz a day, that was at about 15 months though so was having more solids than at your Ds's age.

Good luck!

I don't think the timing is that important - especially when you are just starting weaning. I actually started giving solids around 2- 2.30 pm after milk and when ds wasn't too tired. Once he started being more awake around lunch time I switched it to before his sleep at around 11.30 ish. That was probably after a couple of weeks (it was only 3 months ago but I've forgotten most of it already !)

I have a non-hungry baby, too, after two ravenous little crocodiles!

I tend to treat solid food sessions as separate from bfeeding sessions. Here's what we do:
7am(ish) bfeed.
8am offer cereal in highchair.
10am bfeed followed by sleep
1pm wakes hungry from nap, so bfeed
2.30 ish offer finger food and maybe a bit of eg. banana.
3.45 back from school run, probably bfeed to keep her quiet while I make tea.
4.30pm solids in highchair while older children eat their tea.
6.30pm bedtime bfeed.

She doesn't generally take more than a few teaspoonfuls of solid food at any time, but sleeps through the night and doesn't appear to be wasting away, so it can't be too far wrong.

This routine has just evolved out of what's convenient -- there's no great system to it! But is seems to work for us.

Frogs, how old is DD?

dd2 is nearly 7 months. Started weaning at 6 months.

TBH, solid food makes up a very small part of her total intake, partly because she isn't that hungry, and partly because I'm a bit slack about it since she's my 3rd.

I think the logic behind offering solids separately is that at that age milk is food, and solids is an interesting new experience. If they're ravenous, spoonfuls of glop just isn't going to cut it.

I think I did this in the end which is pretty close to GF:

6.30am BF
7-8am-ish Breakfast
Nap at 9am
Wake up 10am-ish, BF
Lunch around 12 - earlier if DS tired
Nap some time around 12-1
Wake up 2pm-ish, BF
Dinner 5pm
BF before sleep

At 5mths, I think I only offered breakfast and dinner, tended to skip lunch esp if DS wanted BF to get to sleep for pm nap. And DS also went on feeding strikes eg when we went to France at 7mths and refused all jars!

florenceuk, that's pretty much exactly what I'm doing (except he's not interested in bf in the morning). ds2 is 7 months.
I think the point about the early solids (pre 6 months) not displacing milk is important although with both ds's I found it difficult to put this into practice - ds2 has definitely reduced his breastmilk intake now on 3 big meals a day, but he is much happier and thriving since I stopped worrying about it and allowed myself to follow his lead re the amounts of solids, rather than trying to limit him in the hope he'd take more breastfeeds. I try to compensate by giving lots of formula/milk/dairy in his food.

Start by offering milk first, at mealtimes, as that should be the main source of nourishment until 6 months and then reducing by a year, but there will still be milk-only snacks in between the solids. I think we reversed timing at around 6 months but both mine differed, so solids first. Gradually the "meals" will space themselves out and proportion of solids increase, so the milk can be in between times, if at all. tbh I found it best not to be tied by any one approach.

Thanks for advice everyone; it makes more sense to give milk first, as the solids are supposed to be "extra"s. Did any of you have the problem of baby being too tired to take solids with supper time bottle(6pm ish), or same with lunchtime (11am ish)? Trying unsucessfully at the minute to get him to have a longer nap in morning than 40 minutes, and same at 4.30pm ish to prevent overtiredness at bedtime, but he fights till bitter end, and then is shattered by 6.30pm!! Was previously breastfeeding in am from 7.30 till 8.15ish so used to spend that dozing off, hence short morning nap was enough to get him through till midday quite happily. Same at 5.30pm till 6.15pm dozed off on boob and went down happy and talking at 7pm. now on all bottles as started to reject breast more and more-sorry to go off thread but I think his tiredness will be main problem when offering solids with bottles!!