How do I incorporate meals in between bottles?!

[hummingbird123]

Hi, I am gettin myself confused!! I think I have read too many books about the best way to wean etc... basically, at the moment d's 5 months 1 week and is on a four hour routine. She has 7am bottle, 11am baby rice & bottle, 3pm baby rice & bottle & then 7pm bedtime bottle (then dream feed at 11)..... how long should I keep this up for? How do I alter times for her breakfast dinner and tea? Any advice would be gratefully recieved!

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Hi I am in same dilemma. I feed my six month ds a 8 oz milk at 7 am then a 4oz milk and some baby food at 11.30am and 4oz milk and baby food at 2.30pm, then 8oz milk at 6.30pm, bed at 7pm and sleeps thru. I wasnt sure if I was doing this right/or how to cut down on milk. I have slowly reduced milk ozs in the day (he was on 4x 8oz),he has some juice or water too, never sure how much of this he should have! Any one else have any ideas!

Hi mumfor1sttime - pleased its not just me my ds is now 6 months and I am still in same dilemma - I am wondering whether i should start giving small amounts of solids at breafast and also at around 6pm before her bedtime bottle at 7pm. But this will mean she has 4 bottles with 4 small jars of baby food - is this too much? Or, instead of feeding solids before each bottle, should i stick to normal feeding times of 7,11,3 and 7, and then incorporate breafast, dinner and tea in between!? So confusing - but she is v happy baby and like yours sleeps through so we must be doing something right (or we're very lucky)

at the end of my message i meant to say should i stick to noraml feeding times for MILK of 7,11,3 and 7pm, and then incorporate solids at breakkie dinner and tea..... just in case any1 worried I was stuffing ds with food every other hour

Hi Ladies! DS is now 8 months and this is what I did.

BFeed at 7am
Baby cereal at 8am
Bottle or BF at 11am
Lunch at 12.30
Bottle or BF at 3pm
Tea at 5.30pm
Bottle or BF before bed

This is done gradually so as you have 5 month olds just introduce one meal at a time. Babyrice at lunch time for example and then just a few teaspoons of veg. After a couple of days introduce tea and then breakfast. It does become clearer as you go on and soon they will be guzzling lots of food and less milk.

Annabel Karmel books helped me.

In the absence of any replies from other mums (althoug I am a mum aswell!), I am currently childminding babies of 6 and 7 months. The 7 month old is now on 3 'meals' a day with 8oz bottles on waking in morning and bedtime, and 6 oz bottles mid am and mid pm. The 6 month old is working towards this - just having lunch and tea 'meals' with milk feeds am, pm and bedtime, and a dream feed. There are no hard and fast rules. 3 meals a day at 'normal' meal times works well. 4 jars is probably too much (IMHO), as for water, as much as they will take, especially in this weather! You are both doing a great job already by the sound of it though !

Thanks collision, that makes perfect sense.

thanks as well blodwen - sorry, only just refreshed

As you introduce breakfast you may find you can push the 11am meal back closer to 12noon, and then drop the rice at 3pm so ds is just having milk then and give ds their next meal at 5.30pmish when they will be hungry for solids, ending with a milk feed before bedtime. DD (now 7 mths) was able to drop her 11pm feed once solids were established at 8am, 12 and 5pm with 7 oz formula feeds at 8am, 2.30pm and 8pm. Hope this makes sense. I followed Gina Ford's routine for DD2.

Hi I spoke to hv since my last post and this is my new routine-

7am 9oz formula milk

10am weetabix with formula milk and juice/water

1pm dinner-mashed veg etc or baby tin, with pudding etc, and juice/water

4pm tea-mashed food or baby tin etc and a 4oz formula milk, and water.

7pm 9oz formula milk

I was told by hv that the 2 9oz bottles were enough for the day, I give ds a 4oz at 4pm because he likes milk then. He hasnt missed milk in the day at all, as he used to have 4x 8oz bottles, and he loves eating food! Especially weetabix.