prefers solids to milk

[forevermore]

my 23 weeks old dd is prefering solids to milk

she has only ever drunk 4-5 oz's a time anyway now i have tried her on a variety of puree's and she will easily eat them but still only wants 3-4 oz's (pffered before solids) and at a push 5 oz's (if split fed over 1 hour!!!).

my question is how do i continue to wean when she has to somehow fit in at least 20oz's a day?
the more solids she takes the less milk she will drink (and she already takes the minimum). I don't want her to start to refuse milk all together, knowing that solids are available! she is smart like that

today she would only drink 3 ozs so i mixed 2ozs with 4 teaspoons of baby rice and a bit of pear puree and she ate that happily, when seemingly full (when offered milk)

i cannot keep doing this to ensure she takes 5 oz's of milk, can I?

Have you tried offering the milk at other times than "mealtimes" - ie. mid morning/before a nap and mid afternoon as a sort of snack. Short term it might be more hassle (you seem to be feeding something every couple of hours) but she may prefer little and often to large meals of milk and solids. I've been known to mix left over milk with purees too !

I had same problem w/ 2 of my babies; I'm sure DS2 would have self-weaned at 8 months otherwise. So I offered milk first & just didn't offer as much solids as they might have eaten otherwise; the milk is more nutritionally complete so more important than the solids. I also let them have milk at bedtime & overnight; by ~11 months DS2 preferred milk again.

My six month old is going through this process. She has four 5oz bottles every day but recently, she's lost interest in the late afternoon bottle.

The solution has been to drop the teatime bottle but make the 5oz milk up anyway and give it to her (a) on her weetabix and (b) in a cup as a snack. She's been drinking from a cup since four months so will take the milk no problem.

I also use the 5oz formula to add to cauliflower cheese which has been defrosted, just to make it a bit creamier. You can add it to pureed veg too. It's remarkably easy to sneak the formula into her diet.

Dont worry too much, the idea is to decrease milk and increase food thats why its called weaning i guess. Weaning them off milk onto food, you can make up the 20 oz of milk with dairy like yogart, cheese and creme fraiche my daughter loved and still loves 'yeo valley' natural yogurt. Also make rice puddings and custards for puddings

I thought they needed 20oz (a pint) of formula every day until 12 months. My understanding was that you can't substitute cows' mik products because they don't contain enough iron?

Um, you're not supposed to be really reducing milk intake until 12 months. Before then, the bulk of the baby's calorie intake is meant to be formula or breastmilk. (Before 6 months, it's really meant to be all formula or breastmilk.)

Most books i have read say its ok to substitue and also the little book you get from the hospital says so too, well it did when i had my dd1 three years ago. Ds2 is only 10 weeks so not checked yet as weaning is a while off, the reason you wean by 6 months is baby needs more iron from other sources, give plenty of iron rich veg ang proteins and also well diluted orange juice helps you to absorb iron so offer this with meals.

ive got the opposite prob dd is now having 3 meals a day and she wants 9oz bottles between. she also has snacks but thats not what worries me its that shes not putting much weight on

Babies who havent started weaning have approx 35- 40 oz of milk a day so when you start to wean it goes down to 20 oz which is 1 pint. There are loads of babies who go off milk when you start to wean, so thats why you can make it up with other things. I have only ever breast fed so never knew how much milk my daughter had.

starshaker, my dd is the same as yours. she would happily take a whole pot of petit filous/food and then still drink practically the whole 9oz of milk i give her.
to me it doesnt look like shes putting on that much weight

A really good book is, Immunity foods for healthy kids by Lucy Burney she also does a good first book called Optimum Nutrition for Children, just google her name and check out her web site

Babbeis often don't put on a lot of wieght toewards the end fo the first year. They beocme relatively more active and burn off the calories much more easily. As long as they are gaining a bit , healthy and happy , don't stress too much.

I'd just mix formula in with her food whenever possible. You can get them to take quite a lot on cereal etc My dd is going the same way and ds gave up on drinking milk completely at 18 months, he only has it in food now. Try offering as much milk as she'll take first and solids afterwards. The milk is the most important thing up to a year.