4 or 5 bottles at 6mo?! Ready for weaning...

[chellenemily]

I'm getting ready to wean my lo but she is currently on 5 bottles a day, at 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 8pm. She has 7oz bottles at all the times except 2pm when she has 5oz.

I am getting ready to wean and am unsure how to fit solids into our day, as it seems like quite a lot to be giving her!

I think she could manage if I cut the 2pm bottle out, and leave 3.5 to 4 hour intervals between each. Probably upping them to 8oz if she still seems hungry.

Does this seem reasonable?!

I think it depends on how much solids your dd is going to have, whether she is going to be on purees or BLW. At first its likely she won't really take much in.

I personally would keep it the same at first, offer solids one hour after a bottle as milk is the main food still.

Once weaning is starting to get established and she is actually taking a good amount of food in you could then reduce the number of bottles/amount of milk.

I cut out my 1pm bottle in place of a proper lunch with something sweet (yoghurt or fruit) after and she was quite happy to wait 3 hours for her next bottle.

She is not taking much in terms of solids, but I'm concerned that this is partly because she is so full on milk.

From what I can read from other posts, most other 6mo are on 4 bottles a day, with solids fitting in around them.

I am doing a mix of blw and purees, although purees are the main method as I can tell if she has had something or not that way!!

DD was still on 6 bottles a day when we started weaning! It was a massive pita trying to fit food in, particularly with 2 naps a day as well! I didn't want to cut any bottles though as she is pretty small and as we do BLW I knew it would be a while before she started eating much. She's 9mo old now and still on 4 bottles but has just started eating a lot more. Tbh though I still don't really want to get rid of any bottles as she only has 5oz per go so if we drop one, she won't be getting the recommended 20oz per day.

If she would drink more in a bottle I'd defo be trying to get rid of one milk feed at least though....

Maybe you could still keep the 5 bottles for a day or but with and oz or 2 less in each.

Or just drop one of the feeds (or even just half a feed) in favour of some solids and see how you get on. I have found its very much trial and error.

My DS is 6MO and have very gradually started him on solids. I was going to do a mix of mash and BLW but he loves the BLW so we are leaning towards that.

We dropped a feed last week as he wasnt really interested in food over the first week, and he was getting more than above the required amount of milk at this age.

He had been on a routine of 7am, 11am, 3pm and 6.45pm (bedtime), and a dream feed at 10pm ish. These were all 8 oz bottles apart from the dream feed which was a 6. He often left about 2oz especially at the dream feed.(Liked having the extra in the bottle just incase he decided he wanted more!)

We went cold turkey last week and stopped the dream feed. Worked brilliantly!!! Thankfully!! He now drains his 4, 8oz bottles he gets and now is more interested in food.

You could probably drop the 2pm bottle and as you said up the others to 8oz's, so its there if she wants it. That might make it a bit easier to get a wee routine going with the food.

Good luck

Just wanted to add,

Not suggesting dropping a feed is right for everyone.....but it worked for us. I was scared to drop the dream feed up until now, and overall its has worked.