Confused - please help!,

[Newmummy2012]

Okay so I am a FTM about to start weaning my very nearly six month old daughter. I have always liked a routine with her, but am totally confused as to how I am going to fit everything in! She still needs 3 naps a day, and she likes to nap soonish after her bottle (not straight away - we have activity time in between.) I have read that you are supposed to offer solids about 45 mins after a feed. Am so confused as to how I am going to fit in her 4 bottles, which she usually have one every four hours, plus 3 naps, plus 3 mealtimes! Let alone anything else! She is usually awake about 6.30 or 7 am and goes to bed about 7 or 7.30 pm. She tends to get tired and grizzly after about 2 hours of awake time. Any advice would be much appreciated, and examples of schedules that worked for you! Thank you.

I would start with just one meal at first and build it up over a few weeks. You might find that with the addition of food the routine of everything else, naps, milk, changes as well. They tend to start dropping milk feeds at around 9 months, so you've got a while to get the food intake up without worrying about it.

When we first started weaning I continued to feed (milk) on demand/to our usual schedule and then if DS happened to be awake when I was having a meal I'd sit him in his highchair and put a few bits on his tray to explore. I tried to make sure he got at least one chance to explore food per day even if he was sleeping every time I was eating, usually at lunchtime or breakfast time at first.

I never worried too much about times of things, we only really started a proper routine when he was about 12 months old, he used to have milk first thing, then breakfast at about 8, we'd go to a group at the children's centre which had snacks at about half 10 and then finished at 11, he'd then fall asleep on the way home. When he woke up he'd have lunch, then we'd do whatever in the afternoon. I found he needed to have something to eat or some milk at around 3ish and then tea by 5 or he'd be too tired to eat it before bed. This is mostly how things still are and he's nearly 4 now, obviously he doesn't have milk any more, but the meal and snack routine is much the same.

At six months, we did the following:

6.30 - awake, BF
7.30 - breakfast
9 - nap
10.30 - BF
11.30 - lunch
12.00 - nap
2.30 - BF
4.30 - catnap
5.00 - tea
6.30 - bath, BF
7.00 - bed

Sometimes I would give a short BF before tea too. It doesn't leave much time for doing anything else but soon enough DD will drop her catnap and eventually one or more of the daytime milk feeds. HTH.

if it's blw you're doing, just offer straight after a feed, let her play with the food, get her gums round it, without it being a frustrating appetite think. imo.

if purees, i dunno.

There's a gina ford weaning book all my NCT friends obsessed over I think? That might give some ideas for routines at 6 months (take with a pinch of salt though like everything! :)) - libraries might have a copy to save buying the book.

Oh although ignore the bollocks about how "successful weaning leads to a balanced diet and non-fussy eaters" If there's one thing I've learned on mumsnet it's that some children are just fussy. Nothing to do with weaning method, and the "success" idea about weaning is just ridiculous!

don't ignore all that bollocks, OP. just take what you need from it and ignore what you don't. as with all parenting stuff. no need for all the cross faces. talking about any parenting chore in terms of 'success' is the path to misery.

Thank you for the ideas - think I need to relax about it all a bit. Aitch - it is BLW we are going to do as I love the philosophy behind it. I know the idea is just let them get on with it, but I do want her to understand and be a part of our mealtimes.

Bertie - thanks for the advice think I will start with breakfast too as that is usually her happiest time of the day!

Baking - thanks for posting your schedule I will work towards that I think, although every day I find I have to be more flexible with DD schedule - she's her own person after all - am slowly adapting to be less of a control freak about it all!

newmummy we're about to start BLW with DS. I will just give him stuff to play with eat when we eat. When we weaned DD I didn't look at the clock or time solids around milk - she fed when she wanted, and got offered solids whenever I ate. Don't worry too much about timings too much.

well the good thing about 'timings' with BLW is that if you give them food quite soon after a feed then you know that they'll not be freaking out with hunger and give themselves time to get to grips with stuff. you can keep them occupied with some steamed carrot while you get your own dinner ready, then pull bits and bobs out of that.

plus, remember they really don't go from zero to three meals a day that quickly... it took us months to get to three square meals a day (not least because of naps etc) and for dd2 particularly, lunch was very often conducted in the buggy as we were racing back from nursery.

don't sweat any of this stuff, though, it seems huge now because your baby has only ever had milk, but it's literally a matter of a couple of months of ooohing and aaaahing and then they are just boring babies who eat food and drink milk.

Realise I've made myself sound like a totally militant mum with that schedule... it didn't exactly happen like that every day! That was just how things averaged out.

And as Aitch says, it was hardly three square meals to begin with. More gumming bits and pieces.