So confused?! Please help!!

[Poppins27]

Right, my Dd is 24 weeks old and weaning is something which is just totally taking over my head space and giving me brain ache!!!

My dd has previously been offered 7oz bottles every 3-4 hours, sometimes waking for a 6th bottle during the night, sometimes not.

For the last 2 weeks I have been giving her some baby cereal for breakfast after her first bottle, which she takes lovely so I am hoping to now move her onto her next meals.

What I am completely bamboozled with however is when to offer lunch or tea, do I offer it with her bottles, if so will she still be hungry?! do I drop a bottle yet so she eats more?! If not when do I fit the feed in as usually an hour after each bottle she has a nap for any time from 30 to 90 mins.

How did everybody else succeed with this?! Aaargh!!!

Oh and to begin with, if it helps/matters I am going down the puréed route rather than blw, just until I feel more comfortable with offering finger foods

As you can no doubt tell, and help or advice would be much appreciated :-)

They are all different, but once we started weaning we had real problems getting DC to drink milk. We offer milk before each feed, between food stuffs and at the end. DC drinks better when very hungry, but it can be the other way round.I would advise building up food very slowly - because our baby has manic hunger, we went a bit fast and constipation was the result. Weetabix and (homemade) prune puree have helped, and we have had to take a step back - they say babies wont overeat at this age, but lol we have found thats not the case! We still have milk feeds first and last thing, then three meals (which we have gradually built up to) inbetween with milk and food. Understand your Aaarghs completely :) But have loved the weaning stage with all of its oddnesses and set backs.

Thank you so much for responding!! I spoke to a hv this morning who wasn't that encouraging (as my Dd is 25 1/2 weeks not 26?!?!?!) but did reassure me that it's just about trying new flavours and tastes at this stage and that my Dd will dictate how much milk/food she wants and agreed with you that this will gradually build up!!

Just another panic attack diverted, ill just carry on regardless and see what comes of it!!

Thank you!

Your HV is spot on. Food is for fun until you are one, so please don't worry about replacing milk feeds yet as there are far few calories and less nutritional value in the solids. She needs her milk to grow and develop.

The current advice is to offer her solids an hour after her milk. Once she is one you can ditch the bottles and she will need 300ml of full fat cows milk per day.

Ah brilliant, an hour afterwards is a great help, although it feels like all day will be spent either giving bottles or offering food!! Haha!! But that's just the sort of advice/suggestion I was looking for!! Thank you

I think the idea with food is to build it up in addition to milk at this stage, she'll probably start dropping feeds of her own accord at about 9 months or so.

Yep this stage is all about the eating introduce yourself to the idea of kitchen-sink-as-bath!

Just for the sake of accuracy, some f ood does contain more calories than breast or formula milk, and the same with some nutrients etc. However milk does have a perfect balance.

Yeah agree, some does but very little of what they eat at this age will.

I'm a BFing mum and started offering meals alongside milk at first. I would also offer him water or diluted juice (he only ever took a few sips or spat it out completely) then I offered him milk. As his food intake increased I stopped offering him milk. If after an hr or so he wanted milk then he let me know. I think the key is to just follow your baby's cues as they are all so different. I was also confused at first as to when to feed him. My DS has always napped at what I consider lunch time so I opted to feed him after this nap so he's not niggly and sleepy. This usually works out at being around 2pm but then, I don't know many people that have their lunch punctually at noon!

Jiltedjohnsjulie your last post doesn't make sense. Foods like bananas and avocados are very calorie dense, and fine for weaning.

Yes, agree with both points but most mothers, not all obviously, don't offer those foods very often, at least not every day. Lots start out with things like apple.

Think what I was trying to say and phrased very badly was that before 12 months there is little you can offer them that is as calorie dense, but some things obviously are.

Don't know what's up with me on this thread! 6 months not 12 .