Am I trying to get her to eat too much

[donaldduck]

My dd is 8 months old. She has has been doing really well on solids for just over two months but has just started to refuse her solid feeds. Please advise if I am trying to overfeed her or is this a phase.
7-8am 7oz bottle, usually takes about 4oz and then has 2oz put into weetabix.
9.30am takes about 4-5oz bottle and yoghurt
12.30 5oz bottle and a spoon feed
4pm 5oz bottle and spoon feed and sometimes some fruit.
7pm 5oz bottle.
Looking back on some of the other threads on weaning I thought that I may drop the yoghurt and on the evenings that she takes fruit rotate fruit and yoghurt. Or do you think that I should offer solid feeds before bottle?

Yes i wondered why you had the 9.30 yogurt, perhaps drop that, and i used to give dd fruit if we were at home and save yogurts for an easy meal to take out!

With regard to bottles - they do say the milk is the more important of the two so i guess its ok what you are doing. I breastfed my dd and iirc i seperated bf from meal altogether. E.g 12.30 solids and then midafternoon a breastfeed.

Really its whatever works for you and dd though! She may be eating less solids because she is full from milk, but then if milk is the most important it doesn't really matter yet does it.

Hi,
My dd was on 3 bottles a day at 8 months - 6oz after breakfast, 7 oz in the afternoon & 6oz before bed. She has always been a poor eater & I found by keeping milk feeds well away from the solid meals meant she ate a bit more.

She's 11 months now and her latest thing is that she refuses to eat unless she has her own spoon and can attempt to feed herself. I just try & keep mealtimes as fun as possible, it seems to help.

HTH

Thanks for this, the advice about keeping meal times fun was just the reminder I needed. Neither of us was having much fun at lunch today.

I reckon the fun thing has been the key with dd. She's been a poor feeder from the word go (breast feeding a total disaster) and I remembered seeing the way that Tanya Byron woman dealt with fussy feeders on TV - letting them play with food, make a mess etc and not get hung up on what they manage to eat. Mealtimes here are VERY messy, usually end up with me & dd covered in food but her eating is getting much better and we never have fights.

It helps that I am a total slattern and have no problems with crusty bits of food everywhere . DH is less impressed by my feeding technique it has to be said...!

Hi Picinikel, that is so very true. I would like to add that it doesn't prevent a child from having good table manners either.

From the first day she weaned, she was allowed to mess with food. Many a photo of yogurt or something similar all over her hair! We've also had every meal as a family at a table. I've never fussed over the quantity that she eats, if she didn't/doesn;t eat at a mealtime i let that be her choice, dessert still gets offered (normally fruit anyway!).

DDis now 3, and has very good table manners, a very healthy appetite and no longer feels the need to paint her hair with her dinner .

Ooh, that's a relief, Hattie - it was my one concern that maybe she'd learn bad habits and still be smearing yoghurt into her hair at 5 !! I ought to video her eating sometime to show her first boyfriend [evil mummy emoticon].

donaldduck, I think you are giving way too many bottle feeds to be able to get your lo to take much in the way of solids. I would probably drop at least one bottle and space out the remaining ones in between the solids.

At that age my dd was having:
7am - bottle
8am - breakfast
11:30am - lunch
2.30pm - bottle
5pm - dinner
6.45pm - bottle

From 6 months they need around 20 ounces of milk and it doesnt matter how many bottles that is split into. Also, any dairy products, milk with cereal, etc count in that figure too so they dont need to take the whole amount as a drink.

Thank you all so much for replying, I am much more calm now. I am going to try dropping a bottle and progress from there. Tea time today was a little bit more successful - I put on one of her CDs and we had a bit of a giggle.