DS 6mo mad for food - not drinking enough milk?

[WildhoodChunder]

We're weaning DS as he's 24 weeks old, and I have never seen anything like it with his first taste of food - he absolutely loves it, it's the most exciting thing to happen to him in his short life to date. He gets ever so cross when we take the spoon away to load more food onto it, and occasionally a proper rage if he's eaten a whole pot of fruity puree and there's none left.

My worry is I've not yet managed to 'fill him up' at mealtimes on food, he stops eating when I stop feeding him - so he'll have say a portion of baby porridge and a yoghurt at breakfast, possibly followed by a bit of banana, but he'd easily eat more. Lunch today was a portion of homemade soup and bread, a portion of custard and a baby biscuit. Dinner will probably be a jar of something pasta related, a fruity pot and some veg sticks. He's currently waking twice a night since he's been getting food which is a massive improvement, but he's dropped from snacking on the breast every couple of hours to BFing at 5.30am (decent feed), offered at 9am but not really interested, ditto at 1pm and 5pm, he'll feed reasonably well at 7pm bedtime and midnight. He's quite fussy on the breast and wants to look at everything else so he's not on for long, and doesn't seem to be feeding as enthusiastically as he once was. Nappies are fine, behaviour is fine, I'm probably being neurotic but DD never switched as dramatically from milk to food as DS appears to have done. I'm just a bit worried I'm filling him up on food and he's not going to be getting the calories he needs/should be getting from milk.

I should add that he's on the 25th percentile fairly constantly since week 6, although he was born on the 75th and the HV keeps banging on about getting him up to the 50th. I'm a bit skeptical as no-one's measured his length since 6 weeks so I have no idea if the 25th is proportional or not, he's not chunky but he's not super-skinny either, more nicely proportioned. I'm just a bit paranoid though.

My DS is exactly the same (although on 75th percentile so slightly more rounded!), less interested in milk and seemingly unstoppable on solids! However, since we've started to introduce things that need more chewing he's less happy as it's slowing him down!! I've worried about the milk thing too but am so far going with hoping that his wee body knows what it's doing...

If he's been on the same centile since 6 weeks, then that is his centile - no need to artificially increase his weight. Birth centile isn't really relevant.

Feeds at 9, 1 and 5 - are they after meals? I'd offer milk before food, milk at 8 breakfast at 9, milk at 12 lunch at 1 etc.

Wildhood my DS was very similar, loves food and is totally off milk now - I ff but he has dropped to about 300ml a day which is miles too low but it's not like you can make them drink it!

He eats loads too - good breakfast of porridge and fruit, lunch is veggies, chicken or cheese or beans with rice or pasta, followed by yogurt and fruit. Dinner similar to lunch and he has 3 milk feeds as well which he looks at with utter disdain now.

I am going on the basis that he still sleeps through and is putting on weight and seems happy, so that is probably ok.

What I have done is separated the milk and the food entirely, to try to drum up some hunger for milk, but even that hasn't really worked. When he has his morning milk, a full 12 hours after his last feed it's like he knows that porridge is on its way as he'll drink about 100ml but eats a whole bowl of porridge.

Thanks everyone, good to know it's not just DS that has done this! I've been offering the milk before the food, but it seems to make little difference, having said that I do tend to BF him when his sister's having her food so that's probably not helping as he knows there is food around... Thinking about it I'll try BFing away from the table and see how that goes, will have to find more ways to entertain DD but we can cross that bridge if it makes a difference. I do wonder if he knows there's food coming at regular intervals now and waits but we'll see!