Eight Month Old Milk/Food Schedule Help

[Rowlie]

Would appreciate some help or advise. LO is 8m old. He has not taken overly well to solids, it can be a battle to get him to eat which I am trying to avoid so trying to take a relaxed approach about it.

We are doing a mixture of purees and finger foods. Some days are better than others. I’m fairly confident he’s having too much milk and therefore perhaps isn’t overly hungry for solids, however, he is sleeping 12 hours through the night so I am reluctant to change things too much and start cutting milk from the day but perhaps I will have to? Or can I wait longer to do this? I offer 3 meals a day but sometimes he can eat barely anything.

His milk/solid routine is currently:

7am - 7oz bottle
8-8.30am - Porridge and some fruit
9-10.30am - nap
10.30am - 5-6oz bottle
12ish - Lunch (finger foods)
1.30pm - 7oz bottle
1.30-3pm - nap
4.30pm - 5-6oz bottle
6pm - Tea (puree and finger food)
7pm - bed and 7oz bottle

Do I need to worry about this yet? He definitely is eating some food because his nappies have changed. He prefers to feed himself and objects to being spoon fed, but has no teeth yet which makes things harder and doesn’t quite have the coordination to feed himself with a spoon.

Perhaps I’m worrying unnecessarily and should just carry on with what I’m currently doing. He is happy and thriving, not overweight, if anything on smaller side for his age. I just see a lot babies his age eating a lot more! Childminder also said he is having too much milk for age but think she takes more old fashioned view of weaning.

Our paediatric dietitian said 3 meals at 9 months and snacks at 12 so it sounds fine to me.

You say he is small for his age, the only thing that matters is his centile. Is he on the same one he was born on?

@Flopisfatteningbingforchristmas yes weight is fine. Im just worried he’s having too much milk and too little solids.

Turn to focus on making sure he is getting enough iron and then just accept the division of responsibility, you provide a wide range of healthy food but it’s up to him to eat it. You can’t make him eat. Kids do everything in their own time.

Reading your LO’s routine its practically the same as ours. DD is 9months next week and still has no teeth- doesn’t stop her biting off bits of cucumber. Not all babies are as interested to start with and just takes them time or the right thing to get in to food? I dropped her day bottles to 5oz and we feed 1hr before offering meals. Some days are better than others and I have learnt that I need to embrace the mess, I offer her loaded spoons to try and she tries to feed herself with these.
A game changer for me was puff pastry- not the healthiest and not everyday but she loves pesto/pizza twists which she demolishes, easy to hold, make and because they flake and break up that’s handy too.
When starting out I forgot that eating is a skill and something that a baby needs to learn and practise like everything else. If you are happy with your routine and it works then I say cool!

It looks like you have quite short gaps between the milk/food, 2 hours or less in some cases. How often were you feeding before solids? Every 4 hours? Perhaps if you extended the gaps you could cut out a bottle?

I think it's fine. I couldn't tell you milk amounts because I breastfed but DS3 is 9mo and having 3 meals plus about 4-5 breastfeeds a day and sometimes once or twice during the night. DS2 was similar around this age except he woke more at night. DS1 was a nightmare and carried on feeding every 2 hours pretty much until he was nearly 2! He barely wanted to eat solids at all and everyone was on my back over it but he seemed to manage to grow and develop all the same.

I think they say these days that food should be providing the majority (ie, over 50%) of their calories by 1yo - assuming you started weaning at about 6 months you're only 1/3 of the way there! So sounds fine if he's not eating much yet. Just keep offering the food at regular intervals and following his lead IMO.

Childminder may be on the old way which was to start at 3-4 months and on 3 meals a day by 6 months with food starting to overtake milk pretty soon after that? That's from the days when they advised cow's milk (instead of formula) was fine after 6 months though. I know when DS1 was little (a teenager now) they used to advise keeping milk feeds the same and gradually increasing food until 9 months when you could start dropping the milk feeds. But I don't think it's even that prescriptive any more, just follow the baby's lead.

Your baby is still on 3 hourly milk feeds and 32 oz milk which is more of a pre-weaning schedule.
You could try this:
7am - 7oz bottle
8-8.30am - Porridge and some fruit
9-10.30am - nap
10.30am - 5-6oz bottle > reduce to 4oz and aim to drop this feed as it will affect lunch intake
12ish - Lunch (finger foods) > move to 11 or 11.30 and include protein such as salmon fillet (great finger food). Offer a Greek yoghurt for dessert
1.30pm - 7oz bottle
1.30-3pm - nap
4.30pm - 5-6oz bottle > this is affecting how much he’s eating for tea. Drop this feed
6pm - Tea (puree and finger food) > move to 4.30 pm and make it relatively substantial and carb-based eg baby pasta in veggie sauce and then a high-calorie purée eg banana and avocado mashed together
7pm - bed and 7oz bottle > can increase this bottle to 9oz if you are worried about milk intake affecting night sleep