6 months - suddenly eating loads but not cut down on milk at all - OK?

[kalidasa]

After a slow start DS has suddenly "got it" with the eating and is very enthusiastic. He is now having three "meals" a day and eating pretty well (about 1.5-2 pouches a day, plus little pieces of toast and things, though the pouches are still all stage 1 ones, so just fruit/veg/rice/porridge). The thing is he is still drinking loads of milk - three or four big bottles (200-250ml; about 8oz) of formula a day plus a breast feed first and last thing. (Though his breast feeds are quite short now - only 15-20 minutes - so I don't think he can be taking as much as the formula feeds.) He has gone back to needing a bottle/breastfeed in the middle of the night most nights as well. He has always fed very well, but this just seems an awful lot to me. He's not a sicky baby so he's not really losing any. Should I just go with it and assume he will regulate himself? He hasn't been weighed properly for ages but I think he's about 8kg or so.

I think that as long as he's eating a good variety of things, this is okay. It would be better if you gave him more home-cooked food as the manufactured baby foods can be quite sweet etc, but apart from that, just let him eat as he wants. With packaged food it can be tempting to just get him to "finish the jar" too so make sure you're not doing that and he should self-regulate just fine. I wouldn't give him formula in the night though. By this age, unless he was ill or premature, he should be able to go through the night without feeding. Try giving just water for a few nights (and minimal interaction) and see if you can get him to drop that middle-of-night feed so you both get more sleep. Hope this helps.

Thanks cathan. The funny thing is he was going happily without the night feed for months - he dropped it quite early - but it's come back again just recently. So either he is genuinely hungry for some reason or it is really an emotional thing I suppose. We have moved him into his own room quite recently which might be a factor. We have tried repeatedly to settle him back without a feed, which works well at other times of the night, and we've always done the minimal interaction thing, but most nights at the moment he wakes around 3 or 4 and it just doesn't work, he remains unsettled until he is fed (sometimes several hours!) and then falls deeply asleep as soon as he has been. He's never been 'nursed to sleep' so it's not a usual thing for him.

I forgot to say that he is having homemade food too - I've got lots of puree that I made and froze - I just couldn't think how to indicate clearly how much he was having whereas the sachets say how much is in them (about 120 ml).

Thanks for your advice! It really would be great if he would go back to sleeping through, we are pretty tired as we're both working full-time as well!