Milk - is my 6mo getting enough?

[theborrower]

Hi, My DD is just over 6 and a half months and we've been weaning for about 4 weeks. She is now on food 3 times a day and really enjoys it. We've been trying to find out what routine suits her best, and after reading someone else's advice on here, we're trying food about an hour after milk feeds, so she still takes some milk, which seems to be working ok so far .

However, she's now only on 4 milk feeds a day now (FF) with a mini BF on waking. She drinks between 4 and 6 ounces a milk feed, so that's 24 ounces maximum a day. We recently dropped her 5th feed at 11pm because she was drinking less and was harder to wake, and now she sleeps from (roughly) 7 til 7.

Is this enough milk?

My concern is that she's teeny - she's about 12lb and has tracked the 0.4 centile since birth (apart from a blip very early on when she lost weight when we were having struggles BFing). Her weight gain has been pretty constant since then, but because the HV asked me to get her weighed every 6 weeks, I guess in the back of my mind I worry that she's not getting enough or the HV thinks she needs extra monitoring for whatever reason.

What do you think? Is this fine and am I worrying unnecessarily? I'll be at the HV probably next week or week after to get her weight checked.

I heard they had to have minimum of 600 ml a day ( but could include milk in cereal and also yoghurt. 24 oz is approx 720 ml so sounds fine to me.

Thanks IB. I did read that somewhere too, I think, but I was a bit worried we'd dropped the 11pm feed too soon. Also, yesterday she was really not interested in her afternoon milk, so I stressed a bit that she wasn't getting enough fluids too. I think I'm just a worrier :)

You could always add milk or cream to her food - lots of porridge or mashed potato, cheese sauces. Plus you can stir greek yoghurt into loads of things.

Hi, weirdly I've been worrying about the same thing .... DD is 6 and a half months, we're in W4 of weaning and just started 3 solid meals a day, I make up 70 ml pots of fruit and porridge for breakfast, veg for lunch and tea and a little yeo (55ml) at tea time too. I'm struggling to get 600 ml into her every day every now and then it's a battle to reach 500ml. Don't know whether I'm feeding her too much? Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

Do you give milk first?

Hi there, yes I do. Milk first then a little rest, then solids. 5 feeds a day, last one at 8.30pm.

Hi, thanks for your other replies, just checked in after a few days away. She wasn't drinking much milk again this afternoon (although she's always drunk less in the afternoon, mind you) but I'll chill out a bit, I think she got her quota in the end. We've just started making up a bigger milk feed for her first bottle of the day as this is when she is hungriest - she was draining it!

Thanks for the tip about adding milk/cream to food - I never really thought of that as I didn't think it would count (thought all milk amounts would have to be her formula). She likes yoghurt and porridge too :)

Ah good tip, I'll try that too! Thanks!

Wee update - DD has been drinking less milk during the day so I asked the HV about it when I got her weighed this morning and she is absolutely fine :) Was told the 600ml thing is a guideline and because DD is very small, it's unlikely she'll manage all this on top of meals (weaning still going well I think!). Still adding milk to meals where appropriate, and she still loves her yoghurt (although it's a b*gger to clean out her hair/eyelashes/ears etc!)