switching to formula at 6 months

[jennajtxx]

i have been exclusively been breast feeding for 5 months and plan to return to work soon, so i am weaning my LO at 6 months to formula.

should i just start straight with a beaker cup or start her on a bottle?

she has never had a bottle of any sort not even with expressed milk.

and any tips for weaning at 6 months would be great thanks

any tips would be great thanks

If she will take a cup you can skip the bottles, I'm planning on doing that with 8 mo DD2 if she will take it. Have you tried her with water in a cup?

In terms of weaning in solids, it depends in whether you want to go down the traditional puree route, BLW or mix puree and finger foods. Whichever route you do, try and adapt as many of your meals to suit your baby as you can... much less work for you, and means your baby gets used to the type of food you have.

Just avoid salt, whole nuts and honey. Good luck with it all!

Sorry just reread your post and realised you were after weaning tips, not an explanation of what to do... apologies if I have just stated the obvious.

My tip would be buy lots of cheap facecloths from the supermarket for wiping faces / hands. Probably better for the skin and cost much less than wet wipes. Also Dunelm mill do plastic tablecloths for about £3 per meter that make great splashmats for the floor.

You need to drop feeds slowly, so say replace the bedtime feed, continue with this routine for a week, then replace the lunchtime feed, continue for a week, replace one more feed, continue for a week etc.

If this isn't possible you will probably need to express to reduce the risk of engorgement leading to mastitis. I would do a similar pattern - ie one expressing session every time your DC would usually feed, drop one every few days, eventually you'll be down to none. This would also enable you to keep giving breastmilk, if you want to. It's worth knowing that employers have a legal duty to provide a private room for employees to express and fridge space for pumped milk if you wish to store it (or you could just pump and dump)

It might also be an option to continue breastfeeding in the evenings and at weekends if you want to do this - at 6 months he will still need feeds during the day so some will have to be expressed or formula but mixed feeding still carries a lot of benefits if you wanted to carry on. But if you've had enough that's fine too obviously :)