10m, BF & BLW - some questions...

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DS is 10m in the next couple of days. He's still BF and we're doing BLW which is hit and miss really and I'm starting to doubt my 'laissez-faire' attitude to weaning...

We've always offered DS 3 meals per day and at the moment he's having a good breakfast about an hour after milk (1 weetabix & 1 slice of toast) but he's really variable with the amounts he eats for lunch and dinner - sometimes he'll wolf down food such as homemade shepherds pie but then other times he'll just reject it.

I don't know whether I should be offering other food when he rejects something? I keep repeating the 'food is fun mantra' and trying to convince myself that its not a problem if he doesn't eat, but if I do offer him something else that I know he likes (such as philly smeared rice cakes) he'll gobble them up, which makes me wonder if he is actually hungry? I always offer yoghurt and fruit after every meal no matter what he's eaten and 9/10 these will always get eaten too.

He is also BF on demand and has quite a few feeds over the course of the day but at roughly predictable times and so with an hour and half gap before meals. I don't know whether I should actively be reducing these down? I think he has at least 1 or 2 feeds more than he 'needs' as I feed him just before his naps (to encourage him to sleep nice and long) and also once in the night because I haven't the strength to night wean just yet. I did ask my HV whether I should give milk first thing when he wakes or give breakfast first, but she said milk as he tends to wake 6ish and she thought that was too early for brekkie...

I guess I'm feeling a bit unsure about it all really - hoping someone can hold my hand :)

Ds2 is sort of similar. 10m on the 24th. Bf and blw.

Wakes at least once in the night and is bf. I don't feel embarrassed about that though and neither should you.

For breakfast he has maybe some dry cereal. Maybe some toast/croissant/crumpet. Fruit. Wont take anything off a spoon.

Lunch is whatever I'm having or the dc's. Pitta bread/humous, or sandwiches with dairylea (yes I know MN hates dairylea but I figure the odd triangle wont hurt), pasta, cheese on toast, eggs, etc etc. Loads of fruit. He LOVES fruit.

Dinner again could be anything. Last night was pasta and mixed veg. And fruit. Tonight was the same . oops! He loves brightly coloured things like cooked carrot. Potatoes. I have tried chicken and fish and he has a go but doesn't eat much of it. Pizza, rice. Baked beans.

I am just going with the flo still. I have thought the same as you a few times . Eg if I've offered him something and he hasn't touched it, shall I get something else but I think that goes against the principles in the Gill Rapely book. I do offer fruit if he doesn't touch his dinner atall.

But he is growing and developing and VERY happy so it must be going ok.

Am starting to feel the same way about my dd too to be honest. Shes coming up to 10 months and if anything she seems to be increasing the amount of milk she consumes rather than decreasing it!

My LO is bf and on 3 meals a day, plus I try and offer he a mid morning snack & mid afternoon snack.

She does try most of the stuff I put in front of her but not a great deal of it... but then again her tummy is going to be quite small so maybe it is ok...

I was wondering whether to withold milk in the morning until after brekkie too... or should I be offering her snacks more often during the day rather than offering breastmilk...?

I am almost certain were supposed to to offer bm before solids. And milk is still the most important part of their diet :)

I would offer more snacks. DD3 eats 5-6 mini meals a day. Three big ones and 2-3 mini ones.

I almost always finish up with spoonfuls of full fat yoghurt to ensure she is getting enough fat. But I don't worry too much if she doesn't want to eat it as I know she will be getting more solid food in a few hours, and she may be hungrier then.

I stopped BF her at 12 months by replacing feeds with snacks and full fat cows milk. She is 14 months old now and a good eater - but don't compare with other babies too much, they are all different.

If she wakes early I offer her a cup of milk and a banana- she is 14 months

And maybe I'm old fashioned (BLW wasn't invented when I weaned the first two) but I always offered BF after a meal rather than before so more solid food would be eaten. And by 10 months I stopped doing that too.

But don't know much about BLW, just 'weaning'

Yeah - you're doing fine. My DS is now 12 months old and looking back I had just the same worries and felt that I was probably doing things wrong, but it turns out that babies just sort of work out that food is good and better than milk. By 10 months DS was FF, and had breakfast before milk as he woke around 7 (and I was hungry!) and we realised that he ate loads of breakfast and while he was happy to have bottles, he ate less as the day went on. One day we went out with child-free friends and I realised with a pang of guilt that I had forgotten to give a bottle, but he actually ate a lot more at that lunch than he had previously. I then tried (what I felt at the time was a crazy experiement!) water and a snack instead of his morning and afternoon bottles and he seemed to think that was fine.

With regards to food he rejects, I don't think you'll be a bad mother for offering something else. With my DS his meals tended to have a few different parts (eg a sandwich, a rice cake and a piece of fruit) so I didn't bother giving him something else if he just refused one part, but if there was complete rejection of shepherd's pie, for example, I might give him a little something extra (like a piece of fruit as well as a yoghurt, or some breadsticks).

Thanks everyone for the replies. It's reassuring to know that there are other people out there going through the same as I was beginning to feel like I'd stuffed this all up!

princessProudmel - I know BF to sleep really isn't anything to be embarrased about but I feel like DH thinks that it's my own fault that he keeps waking in the night because DS has never been 'taught' (or given the opportunity) to sleep without boob/me. So when I'm grumpy because I'm tired, he kinda looks at me and is like well, if you would just let him cry then you might get some solid sleep sometime. But that's a story for another thread!

bertilicious - Snap - that's exactly how I feel! Should i offer more snacks over BM? But then the main times he'd be offered milk would be just before a nap and then I'll never break the boob-to-sleep cycle. Having said that though, yesterday I didn't offer boob AT ALL apart from just before naps, and he didn't ask. In fact he only had 4 x milk (04.00, 08.30, 13.30 and 19.30) down from his ususal 7/8x BUT he didn't really eat more solids either .

semicolon - Thanks for the input! Maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself and thinking forward to when he'll need less milk like your DD and panicking about how it will happen without me actively doing something. But maybe I need to remember that he is only 10m and a lot can change over 2m! Will definitely try to up the snacks though and see what difference that makes.

babybouncer - Glad to hear that offering something else isn't crazy! My friends keep saying that I shouldn't do that at all or else he'll know that he can just refuse food safe in the knowledge that he'll get something else, but I actually follow your principle depending on how many 'parts' there is to the meal.