Argh - so confused about weaning portions vs bottle sizes

[amyboo]

Apologies in advance for the long post!

I'm looking for a bit of help/advice on weaning. DS (20 weeks) started having a bit of baby rice at around 18 weeks which he seemed to love. So, on the advice of our paediatrician (we live in Belgium where the guidelines are slightly different) we started on purees last week. All was going well, and he started happily eating 2/3 icecubes of puree in the afternoon, followed by his bottle (8oz).

The last 5 or so days he's gradually started taking less and less of his bottle. So, I thought I should maybe give him more puree. So today I gave him 8 cubes, which he ate, but then barely had 4oz of his bottle. It was the same yesterday when I gave him 4 cubes of puree. He's now started being very difficult with his bedtime bottle, and this morning he was also difficult with his bottle. This evening it took 30 minutes to get him to take all the bottle, and he ended up screaming and having to be soothed by DH and then me. He's also teething, so I'm not sure if that's having an effect...

So, I guess what I'm wondering is if I'm giving him too much puree and that's why he's not taking his bottle? Is he still getting enough milk? How much puree should he be having?

I'm so confused. To add another problem, he's starting in creche next week, where they're happy to give him puree but seem to give loads!

Can anyone help me sort things out?

when do you give food/milk? Do you split it up or give it at the same time? I found that my lo's took it better if they had milk first and then an hour or more later had their solids. Milk is still most important at this age so I wouldnt give huge amounts of puree if he is going to cut back on his milk so quickly (and I would give milk first, not solids)

I was giving him puree and then milk around 3pm. Today i gave him puree with his 11am feed as that's how they do it in creche. He took a bit but then i gave him his bottle and followed it with puree and he was fine. He took a 120ml bottle today (5oz ish). Creche are happy to do it however i want, so i guess i could do bottle then puree. In that case, how much of each do you think when his normal bottle size is 8oz (180ml)?

They will cut back on milk and only need 500-600 ml per day once they are on 3 solid meals a day.

So try to find a balance between the amount you are giving as solid and milk. You'll find you need to give milk less often, probably cutting down eventually to only 4 milk feeds a day. Eventually you'll find a different routine than the one you were used to when it was just milk feeds but this will take a few weeks to work out.

There's a couple of current threads going on feeding solid and milk routines. Have a look and try to find one that you think may fit with yours, depending on when your baby wakes and which feeds he seems to want less of.

My DS is 7.5 months and our day goes roughly like this:

0730 breakfast
0800 milk
1130 milk
1300 lunch
1530 milk
1700 dinner
1900 milk, bed

But it probably took 4-5 weeks to reach this routine (we started weaning at 5.5 months). I prepare 180ml for each bottle, but usually it doesn't all get drunk. Often he has less than half the bottle but will take some more 30 minutes later.

For each solid meal I think DS has 4oz, but I'm not entirely sure how big my freezer pots are.