Baby led weaning, still on the boob.

[Barbamamama]

Hi!
LO has just turned 10 months and I had him weighed yesterday as last week he bit his tongue quite badly (and had a fever and 3 new teeth! Fun fun fun!) so has been off his food. As expected his weight has dropped a bit, but he is just under 50th centile and perfectly healthy.
The HV I spoke to said I should only really be BF four times in 24 hours at this stage and should aim not to BF during the day by the time he's a year old.
LO still BFs every couple of hours and I have been doing BLW since he was 5 1/2 months old with varying success. Some weeks he loves solids and eats everything I give him but he hardly eats anything at the moment and I don't really want to cut down his breast milk if he's not ready. I was hoping he would've taken to solids more by now but am not in any rush really.
If I cut down on BF will he eat more solids?
Would be good to hear from others that have done BLW and how long it took.

We just had our first successful breakfast in two weeks! AND he used a spoon properly for the first time- PHEW!
Yes it was at 10:30 but still pleased.
I tried giving him some food at 8ish but he wasn't interested in anything but boob!

Barbara - my boy doesn't like an early breakfast either, we usually have to do it about 10am and even then it is hit and miss. He really likes eating at lunch and teatime, and we only started doing bfast in the last few weeks (he doesn't get up until 8:30 - and that's when I wake him!) so wondering if he'll just take a while to get used to it (he's maybe not a morning baby...)

I expect the HV isn't meaning to reduce volume as such, more that having little and often does not encourage set mealtimes, more grazing over longer periods.

Whilst as a baby it doesn't matter so much how they eat, I expect most parents would find it easier if their kids were in a breakfast, lunch and tea routine by age 1.

My dd would take little and often as a baby and I thought it was a nightmare as she got older! Its a difficult habit to break. As she grazed over time, say every two hours, she never felt hungry enough to eat an actual meal as she was never going long enough between feeds. That in my experience makes it much harder to wean successfully and makes it harder on you as the parent in terms of routine etc.

My dd was much happier once eating larger meals rather than eating little and often and never feeling completely satisfied.

jam I can absolutely understand it being impractical if it doesn't fit in - e.g I'm back to work on Monday and glad that my 12mo has naturally reduced the number of feeds. It's more the assumption that the same thing works for everyone and can always be engineered that I find difficult.

@glorious yes I thought 4 feeds for a 10 month old was a strange blanket rule to have as it was the first time if met her and a five minute chat!
I did "don't offer do t refuse yesterday" and think we did about 8 feeds. But he also are three meals and snacks so very happy with that. Guess he was just off his food because of his tongue / teeth / snot combo!
It's so easy to worry / panic when they stop eating...
Thanks again for the words of encouragement!

@eletheomel
Glad I'm not the only one with a late starter! Suits me fine :-)

Just so that you know, "don't offer and don't refuse" is a technique for encouraging your child to stop breastfeeding so it depends on what your breastfeeding goals are. If you cut out daytime feeds and your baby starts sleeping through the night then they're really isn't a lot of breastfeeding left, so if you want to feel until your baby is two, then this probably isn't the best approach. If you would rather stop breastfeeding sooner than that then this approach would probably work quite well.

Part of the principle of baby led weaning is the baby gets to decide on what his her food needs are. I found with my two that they really up upped the breastfeeding sometimes if they were coming down with an illness or teething and had other times when they preferred solid food.

Agree with Rani.