Weaning schedule confusion!

[TheMichelinLady]

I started giving my little girl purees a week ago. She is swallowing a tiny amount, if any, at the moment. Her (formula) milk is therefore the same amount as before, and our day is like this:

7:30am 7oz milk
11am 7oz milk
1pm "lunch" (puree)
2pm 7oz milk
5pm 7oz milk
7:30pm 7oz milk

Next week I plan to offer her puree again at 5pm instead of the milk feed, but increase the other 4 milk feeds to 8oz as she is still not really eating any food. Does this sound sensible?

What about when I introduce "breakfast" - do I replace the 7:30am milk with food so she is having 3x food and 3x milk offerings per day? It all feels like a lot of feeds! Sorry if I sound stupid, she is my first baby and I'm new to all of this. Would really appreciate any advice!

I do milk on waking then food about an hour later, lunch and dinner when we have ours. Then offer milk on demand as they are getting used to solids - some days they seem to eat loads, others very little, so I find it best to be led by them rather than be too fussy about a routine until they find their own.

My schedule is like this -

0630 - bottle
1000 - bottle
1200 - lunch puree
1400 - bottle
1630 - dinner puree
1830 - bottle

Ill introduce the breakfast puree probably around 8am a few weeks down the line. If you're baby is still new to solids then I wouldnt replace any milk for solids just yet as its likely they wont take enough. Bottles get 'dropped' either because the baby reduces their formula intake from that feed, and you introduce a solid snack instead, or you just take the bottle away in favour of a snack. I think for me what will happen is the 10am or 2pm one will be the first to go. I think when that happens ill introduce formula at the lunch puree.

Thats my broad plan anyway! I dont know if its 'right' or not though, happy to be told im wrong!

How old is she? Food should be given between 30 to 60 mins after milk and don’t forget from 6 months old she needs finger foods.

Thanks everyone. @Lockdownseperation I didn't realise that, I read that there should be quite a gap after the milk feed so they're hungry enough. She is 6 months, but still a bit too wobbly for a high chair (which I'm waiting to speak with the HV about). I feel she is safer on purees for the moment, but hoping to get her onto finger foods as soon as she's ready.

At 6 months she is just exploring food and she won’t equate food with hunger. If she is hungry then she will be less willing to explore and try new things. The nhs weaning website is full of lots of tips.

Echo what others have said - at this stage the food doesn't replace the milk as they aren't eating enough. Milk feeds start to drop on their own (they lose interest as they start to fill up on real food) - for my baby the first to go was the mid-morning bottle at about 9 months, then the mid-afternoon bottle at around 11 months.

In my experience you get left with the morning and evening bottles, so I forced the issue at 1 year by offering morning milk in a cup instead of a bottle (she won't drink milk out of a cup!). Now she eats a massive breakfast first thing, but there's no way she would have been ready for that any sooner.

Weaning really is a marathon, not a sprint. Take it easy and follow her lead - introduce lots of flavours and textures and let her get her hands on it, even if not much goes in her mouth at this stage.

Your baby will let you know when they are ready to drop bottles. We found that as they eventually started consuming more food they gradually started refusing bottles. For our baby to take breakfast, we had to stop the morning bottle as they won’t take both - even with an hour in between.

Food is fun until you’re 1 and all that - stick some finger food in front of her and let her go nuts feeling it, holding it and sucking the life out of it!

I'd keep the bottles the same as now and just introduce meals - we did 30 minutes after a bottle. I found the timing of tea difficult to get right to start with, breakfast was a bit easier in terms of getting my DD to eat a decent amount. She was a good eater but we only started to drop bottles at about 9 months.

Thanks so much for the advice everyone! It's been really helpful to ask on here, as I've actually found some of the NHS stuff a bit contradictory (eg. I read to give solids just before a milk feed in an NHS leaflet, but other NHS sources say different). It's good to see what other people actually do. I really want to introduce finger foods but like I say, I am a bit worried about how wobbly she is at the moment. Will just have to go careful I think

Yeah defo. Guidelines are just that; guidelines. You know your baby the most!