Confused on how to drop feeds..

[cheesenpickle]

Ive been weaning nearly a month, and currently DS is ff and has 4 bottles a day- hes now on 2 meals a day, sometimes 3 though this is a bit hit and miss at the moment. His feeds are roughly 8, 11.30/12, 2.30/3.30 and bedtime feed 6.30/6.45. At the moment ive been doing solids an hour after milk. Ive had a look round and it seems to be the 11.30 that goes first and everyone says they drop it themselves. Now im obviously not getting it, if you offer 11.30 milk first then solids how do they drop it?. Surely at 11.30 you would have to offer food first, milk after and if they are full of solids they would begin to reduce the milk?

My next question is that at the moment because i feed milk when he asks for it (its roughly the times above) if he has a big breakfast (solids) then that seems just to push the milk time forward so instead of feeding milk at 11.30 its now 12. 30 so then dinner becomes 1.30 and so on and consequently his last feeds end up some days 4pm and 6.30pm as bedtime doesn't change? Should i be offering milk at set times rather than waiting for him to ask now?

Im really am confused and just want some kind of a pattern so his meals/ milk are not all over the place.

How much milk is 4 bottles. You need to make sure they have at least 500ml a day or they will need vitamin drops. See this page.

Otherwise they do drop the feeds themselves by not bothering about the milk. I'm bf and she will just look away not interested. She has a bottle at nursery and she takes only 20-30ml. But nursery said last week she bashed it away when offered.

In your case just keep offering at fixed times and let them drink as much as they need. If they ask earlier don't deny. But in your case he's not asking until after 11.30. Just offer at 11.30 until he threw it away himself.

180 x 4 at the moment. He was on 240 x 4 but once he started solids he started to bring up lots of milk so we reduced them and hes fine with it.

Thanks for your reply, so I should carry on offering milk then solids after then?
Is there any point where you would reduce the milk offered to encourage them to eat more solids or doesn't it work like that?

I think your DS has already started dropping milk if you are doing 60ml less! Obviously with bf I can't control the amount. I can just feel how enthusiastic she is at feeding. And at nursery I gave them a 100ml bottle for mid morning and mid afternoon, DD just never finish them.

My DD is only 8.5mo so I don't worry about her having too much milk at all. I would be keen if she can take more milk in fact instead of having the rusk or banans they offer her . Given food is fun until one really.

I had been wondering the same thing myself.

My DS is almost 8 months and up until recently was taking 4 x 8oz (230), grubber! Over the past 2 days he has started to have a later afternoon nap, and therefore has missed out his 3.30 bottle (6oz). I have up'd the other 3 he gets in the day (3 x 8oz) so it wasn't too much of a drop in his milk intake.

You might find over the next 3-4 weeks once he is getting 3 regular "meals" a day that he'll start to change his routine himself.