i've done the reading,i've spoken to the HV and...IM STILL BLOODY CLUELESS!!!

[mrsleomcgary]

Pfb is 6mo and we're a few weeks into weaning. So far she's getting her 9oz bottles every 4 hours or so along with which we've been given her some food,like veg puree with cous cous,mashed banana or finger food like toast with butter or pancake though most of the finger food winds up on the floor! I'm conscious of not over feeding her so she'll have the bottles first (which she may or may not finish) then either spoon feed until she's not interested or just leave the finger food on her plate and let her get on with it.

I know I need to increase the food and drop the bottles but I just don't know how. I'm also completely clueless as to how much is too much when it comes to salt, sugar etc so if anyone has recommendations on what is acceptable i'd really appreciate it.

It sounds like your doing great. Avoid refined sugar. Don't add salt/try to use low salt versions of things like butter/stock. Over time she'll start dropping feeds/drinking less at each feed but it's still early days.

until you get into the swing of weaning, I agree it be very complicated and a bit stressful. I even managed to get confused the second time around! As far as I can see the reason it is so confusing is that it is difficult for every family/baby. Just try to think of it as a gradual process to get your baby from only having milk to eat the food you her to eat in a way you would like her to eat it (obviously this will be different for everyone because the food we eat are different and the times we eat are different.)

With DD1 I planned mealtimes around her so it coincided with the milk. Roughly 7am, 11am, 3pm etc. lunch therefore started at 11am and I gradually moved it to 12pm. This worked well but personally I pefer the way I had to do it with DD2.She had her milk at roughly the same time as DD1 used to but as I wasn't going to feed the DDs separately I just sat DD2 in the highchair at mealtimes (lunch 12pm and tea 5pm) and gave her food in addition to milk. At about 7 months I realised she wasn't very interested in her 11am bottle so I have reduced it to 4oz and sometimes she only takes 3oz of it. All other bottle are still 7oz although sometimes she doesn't take much of the 7pm one.

I think basically what I am trying to say is that she seems to be dropping the bottles and increasing the food all by herself so I don't really need to 'do' anything to make it happen!

sorry for the rambling - I hope it makes sense!

I wouldn't drop bottles yet, let her get used to a bit of food for a while I reckon. I think I started dropping bottles about 8 months, obviously if you think she doesn't need them then do it earlier. We were on 5 bottles a day, I dropped the mid morning one first, then the mid afternoon, then the 10pm dream feed,between about 8 months-10/11 months