Breastfeeding, weaning and chubby baby

[babakeri]

Hello,

My baby girl is nearly 10 months and slightly overweight. She is breastfeeding from the start and since 6 months I am giving her some pureed food mostly just to try tastes.

We haven't put in place foods for main meals such as breakfast, lunch or dinner to be puree or solid.

From one hand I'm conscious that she is quite chubby only from the breastmilk and I know this can impact her adult life. On another side I don't want to reduce too much breastfeeding as she is happy and content still feeding this way. But also I dont want to put aside other foods and I'm worried she is getting older.

Sorry if I'm not expaining it all properly.

For now she is breastfeeding when she goes to bed, when she wakes up, for comfort, I could be doing it far too frequently maybe that is why she is so chubby, don't get me wrong I like chubby babies but at the same time I don't want to overdo it and her being off the charts.

So my question is how do I balance it, keep with breastfeeding but also put in place normal daily meals. Can I keep doing what I'm doing until she is one year old?

Has anyone like your health visitor said that your baby is overweight? What do they suggest?

If it's just that she is on a higher weight centile I wouldn't worry about it - babies get less chubby as they start crawling, walking and moving about more.

Also - take care of yourself! My baby was drinking so much milk at 6 months I was constantly exhausted and eating almost non stop!

Please don't worry too much about the weight, she'll start to slim down when she starts to walk.

I'd try and start with introducing breakfast. What do you like to eat for breakfast? Could she have some of that?

I'd start to offer some finger foods along with the purées as it's important for them to develop muscles on their mouths through chewing.

I wouldn't stress about her weight and the milk at this stage but as above would start up introduce more regular meal times and a range of food to chew on and feed herself.

why Aren’t you giving your baby food? Food before 1 is just for fun, so it’s not going to increase her weight if that’s your concern?

my breast fed 7m old is on 3 meals a day. Feeds breast milk about 7/8 times a day, before and after naps, before bed and once or twice at night. She has no teeth and has been on the 80th centile since birth. I believe introducing food won’t necesssrily decrease milk feeds as they play/drop/chew and spit out most of it. But it’s important for developing tongue movement needed later for speech, and to prevent choking.

For example; today LO “ate”:
for breakfast: 2 fingers of watermelon, munched on 1 strawberry cut into quarters, small bowl of porridge (mostly I fed her but also gave her the spoon to “self feed” aka flinging the spoon round and refusing to give it back)
lunch: half a spinach and sweet corn muffin (I made 12 and froze them all for quick meals when I am out and about or I fancy a sandwich and don’t want to make her something different) and some cucumber sticks
dinner: we gave her some of our sausage, butter bean tray bake with new potatoes and broccoli (an absolute fave)

she is my second though, my first we were much slower to increase meals, but still did BLW rather than purées. I think we didn’t 1 meal a day from 6m, 2 at 7, 3 at 8, plus 1 snack at 9 etc.

id start with the most convenient meal, we started with breakfast as I was already cutting up fruit and making porridge for me and my eldest, and as we did BLW I don’t really make her different meals to us, just give her whatever we’re having just cut appropriately.

Hope that helps

As far as I know breastfeeding is actually linked with decreased obesity risk in later life.
Start giving your baby healthy choice of normal food alongside brestfeeding, her weight will even out eventually, she's only little still.
If you're worried always good to ask heslt professionals.

Your baby is absolutely not overweight and you absolutely need to get out of that mindset right now.

You can't overfeed a breastfed baby. Your baby stops when they've had enough, and asks when hungry for more. You need them to keep this instinctual skill through the weaning process.

Trust your child to take what they want, no more no less. Don't encourage them to eat more if they say they are full, don't congratulate them for finishing food, don't restrict them.

Your job is to just make sure only healthy options are offered, and then let them chose what and how much.

Read up on baby led weaning for tips.

Some babies eat a lot of solids from the start, some take over a year to get it. Still offer as much breast milk as they want. Let them eat real food with you at all meals. Let them see you eat and enjoy healthy food. Gradually they will eat more food and less milk. Don't worry about how long it takes, just keep offering healthy, real food.

Both of mine were the chubbiest babies in the room and slimmed down gradually as they got older. Very slim now at 8 and 5.

You're doing it all right so far! But please please don't think your girl is overweight!!!

What 10 month old is overweight? Who says?

Just keep offering food and milk feeds. Let her be a baby.

Both my children were under a paediatric dietitian due to allergies. I have had both a bf and ff baby. My youngest as only just stopped bf now and she is close to 4 yrs old.

I was told they must be on 3 meals a day by 9 months. The food is for fun before 1 is not true, especially for breast feed babies. You need to start to get her onto food as well as bf ASAP. If you are struggling with this then pls speak to your HV.

Yes, it’s fine to keep breast feeding on demand. When she gets to one if you want to continue during the day it’s much easier to put of a bf if you don’t want to feed at that moment by offering snacks.

@babakeri what centiles is she on for weight and height and is she still on the centiles she was born on?

You need to be feeding your baby healthy meals, not mostly milk with the odd bit of purée. She needs the nutrition. Alongside that, breastfeeding on demand is fine still. Many babies are chubby before then start moving around more. It certainly won't impact her as an adult!

She needs to be learning how to eat food at this age. Not in huge quantities, but she needs to be tasting things other than breastmilk and learning to chew and swallow without choking.

I wouldn't worry about her weight. It's normal for babies to get very chubby at this stage when they're taking in a lot of calories but aren't moving much yet. My son was a tiny skinny little newborn, looked like a sumo wrestler at around 6-8 months, and is now a tall, slim two year old.

A 10mo breastfed baby is not overweight and you need to be giving her proper food. Where on earth have you got this information from?

For contrast, my 10mo breastfed DD had a long morning feed, then peanut butter on toast, then a breastfeed for nap time, a houmous sandwich, cucumber sticks and some fruit, another quick breastfeed at nap time, some breadsticks for snack time, tuna pasta for dinner with some yoghurt, a longer bedtime feed and she will probably have one overnight feed.

Still breastfeeding here at 15 months. We're a bit looser on meals, would say she has 6ish mini meals a day (meals and snacks are equal sizes and small, and she gets bored of flavours easily). Snack might be a couple of cheddar sticks, a handful of sliced grapes, a couple of snack a Jack's, for example. She breastfeeds usually upon waking, nap time, bed time and overnight, injuries and illness etc. On demand essentially. She's always been bang on 50th percentile.

We have an underweight 4yo son with ARFID, so in my opinion, if they can move as they should for their age, there's no chance they're overweight. Especially at 10 months when they're just about to start moving. It's really important to get in there early when they're willing to explore and try new textures and tastes, these are whole life skills. It'll probably slow her weight gain too, food is exciting but less calorie dense than milk.

Babies are supposed to be chubby at this age! It's to give them reserves for when they start zooming around getting into everything.

That said at this stage she should be eating at least three meals a day (or an equivalent amount). If it helps, my eight month old has...

• cup of formula to start the day
• porridge for breakfast
• small savoury morning snack (think like four veggie straws, a cracker)
• big lunch, could be anything, mostly spoon fed
• cup of formula before afternoon nap
• big dinner, could be anything, mostly spoon fed
• big breastfeed before bed
• usually one small breastfeed during the night, though she sometimes misses this.

I'd like to night wean and give up bf completely but she's just started nursery and I think that's enough change for now.

At 10 months I would be expecting her to be eating proper meals and starting to cut down a bit on the milk. Maybe you need to start making meals more important? She's old enough to be eating protein and a range of other food groups.

My second DC was such a chubby baby, absolutely loved breast milk and then food! Now at nearly 18 months he’s running around and is much slimmer, but is still a sturdy chap (now his height and weight are on the same percentile and his gorgeous chub rolls are gone 😭.) Definitely don’t worry about it, make sure your getting your baby use to a wide range of food and I’m sure she’ll be absolutely fine. If you’re seriously worried speak to your HV.