Baby - milk, solids, good nights sleep?

[lunavix]

My ds of 6 months is currently on 2 ice cubes of home cooked food, and 25oz of milk (over 5 feeds)a day... I'm terrified that if i try and cut out the 10pm feed he won't sleep through the night, or am i just whinging and i should be happy his 10pm feed isn't 3am?
also does everyone give their babies the food they eat for dinner? i think our food would be really unsuitable, or am i fussing?

Hi again lunavix! Not sure about the 10 pm feed thing - I'm still (breast)feeding on demand pretty much. Also, I have only just started weaning so definitely not giving my dd what we eat for dinner. It depends what you eat, I think. You do need to be careful about salt and stuff. Someone else will probably be along with a more coherent reply...

Once you start increasing the amounts of solids he is having he will naturally drop the 10pm feed, both my ds and my dd did about 6 weeks after their first tastes. If you have a book about weaning it should tell you at what ages to introduce which foods, for example, wheat and cows milk in cooking after 6 months, so if you know when to introduce what foods, you can work out whether your meal is suitable for your baby, as long as you don't add any salt. Does that make sense?

Thanks both of you for your advice

I think I'm having problems with it because he has problems eating. He was fed from a tube as a baby and as a result he will eat and eat and eat until he throws up and the he'll eat some more, we had to structure his feeds to what we felt he needed, through guesswork and time. Our health visitor was unbelievably unhelpful as well.
His first tastes were over two months ago, and he gets incredibly edgy if his food is even 5 minutes late, so I can't see him dropping it naturally...

Couldn't you try to cut out the 10pm feed and if it doesn't work out re-instate it? 2 cubes of food doesn't sound that much though to start knocking out a feed. And since my 5 month old DD is currently on 11.30 and 3.30 wakings (ish) I do think just 10pm isn't too bad. Especially if he had a difficult start in life.

I know I probably sound a bit silly worrying about 10pm feeds but he goes to bed at 8pm and it really disturbs his sleep, waking up at 10, even for a feed. We tried cutting it out, but he woke and cried anyway, i think losing 5oz a day is too much. i think the food equiv. is 2/3 a jar 3 times a day.

Hi - if he wakes, give him water and slowly he won't expect a feed at this time of night. Good Luck - I have been told as long as baby has 20 ozs of formula milk up until 1 year then he/she will be getting correct iron levels and no need to go onto the hungrier baby feed unless special needs, so you'd need to ask a health visitor? Difficult when your baby eats until sick but at 6 months my baby was having 2-3 ice cube fulls of food initially but he wanted more quite quickly. How about leaving his main meal until end of day, say 5pm and giving him milk at 7pm before bed and then he should be quite full. If give 7ozs 4 times a day of formula milk plus 3 feeds hopefully that'll work. Good Luck.

His main source of nutrition should still be the milk at 6 months- he's just learning to eat the food- it's more for practice than nutrition at the moment.
As for the food you give him- should be bland veg or fruit, maybe a bit of chicken or fish- pureed till smooth- no spices or salt- I found/find it easier to mass cook and freeze in ice cube trays