Breastfeed-equivalent snacks

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Hi. I know this has been done before but I couldn't find the thread on a search...

My BLW 10mo DD is doing very well on solids and down to 3 or 4 BFs a day (first thing, bedtime, once or twice during the day depending on what she demands [11ish and/or 2.30ish], and very occasionally once at night).

My question is what size snack would make up for a dropped daytime feed. Rice cakes or fruit don't seem very calorific. Toast? A more filling biscuit?

Thanks!

No suggestions I'm afraid, but am bumping this because I'm just about to start introducing snacks for DD and am lacking inspiration at the moment...

Isn't the reason for dropping feeds that the stomach is now larger, the ability to regulate glucose levels better, the calorie needs lower (from less rapid growth) so that they don't need such a regular supply of calories?

Rather than simply a desire to switch the type of food you want to give them? If that's the case then a full meal the same as at other times? If it's just a snack to make up for the calories from the BM/Formula then the number of calories doesn't matter?

(I have no idea on this of course, DD has dropped feeds simply by not wanting milk much since weaning started...)

Not really sure on snacks providing the same as bm but there are some good suggestions of snacks here. How about things like humous and veg sticks? Banana and breadsticks? Cheesy Breadsticks? Cheese and apple?

The idea isn't really to drop lots of bfs but to add in extra foods while still keeping up enough bm in their diet.

You could offer a small snack before a bf (say a rice cake, a breadstick or a piece of banana) and then bf so that the amount of bm they take has decreased a little but not much.

The 310kcals a 9-11m baby needs from complementary foods doesn't go far once you add in a few snacks too.....

I keep posting this so apols. if you have seen this before :-

6-8m need 130 kcals of complementary foods and 485 kcals from milk (approx 650ml of bm at 75kcals per 100ml) total 615 kcals a day

9-11m need 310 kcals of complementary foods and 376 kcals from milk (approx 500ml of bm at 75kcals per 100ml) total 686 kcals a day.

12-23m need 580 kcals of complementary foods and 314 kcals from milk (approx 420ml of bm at 75kcals per 100ml) total 894 kcals a day.

Full details here on page 18. Please note that there is different values for industrialised/developed countries and developing countries. I have listed the industrialised/developed countries figures.

HTH

I'm assuming that your DD is having three 'meals' a day via BLW, and my DS swapped his 11ish and 3pmish bottles for snacks (and still has them aged 2 1/2).

The sorts of things I've given as snacks are:
fruit (sliced or in sticks) - bananas, pears, grapes, oranges, apples etc
breadsticks, rice cakes, crackers, fingers of toasted pittas
raisins, dried apricots, yoghurt covered dried fruit

Hope that helps

Thanks for all your responses and ideas.

I hadn't really thought that dropping BFs might be ok in terms of my DD just getting all her calories at mealtimes, but it makes sense.

One additional thing is that she seems to have a bit of a dairy intolerance (develops a bit of a rash if she gets dairy on her skin which disappears within 15 mins or so) so we've been avoiding dairy. I guess that means if she drops BFs she might not be getting enough calcium. She's drinking more and more water and eating lots of juicy fruit so she should be OK on the liquids front, but not milk...

Truthsweet - is there a way of estimating how many mls of BM she's getting?

Not a method easily available to a mum unless you have access to ultrasound machine to measure the changes pre/post feed .

Generally, though if you take the amount of milk she should be having and divide by the number of feeds she has that should tell you roughly how much milk she takes. It's not an exact science as some babies may take 0mls when they nurse at one point in the day and then take 200mls at another feed.

So, if she has 4 bfs a day and needs approx 500mls, then around 125mls a go would be the best estimate.