Where am I going wrong??

[PinkParsnips]

DD was 9lb at birth and has always been o the 91st centile. Shes tall but not chubby. She is 8 months now and I took her for weigh in today - She has crept slightly above the 91st centile and I basically got what felt like a bit of a lecture about portion size, she's drinking too much milk and should be having snacks such as puddings and petit filous etc. instead. I explained I don't give her those things due to the sugar but apparently that's what I must do.

I was under the impression that I should let dd reduce bottles on her own - food for fun until 1 etc - but now I've been told thats not the case as she's been weaning for 2mth and I should make only 4oz bottles or take one away completely. I currently make 4 x 8oz bottles and let her take what she needs which is usually about 5-6oz a time.

So I'm just looking for advice on whether what I'm doing isn't right and what others 8mth olds eat / ate.

A normal day would be:

7am - 5-6oz formula
9am - a small portion of ready brek
11am - about 5oz milk
1pm- equivalent amount of our food mashed as say 3/4 of a pouch or maybe finger foods eg a scrambled egg with some toast fingers, cut up veg or fruit most of which gets dropped
3pm - another 5-6oz ish
4.30pm, same amount of food as lunch
6.30 - last bottle
No night feeds, no snacks.

Am I going about this all wrong?!
I will take her advice and introduce 2 x healthy snacks but I don't know about the rest? Sorry for mammoth post.

If she's around the 91st centile for length, then I wouldn't worry about her being on the 91st for weight. Did the HV measure her length when she was weighed?

I didn't FF so have no idea about volumes of milk, but it doesn't seem excessive especially as she doesn't have any feeds after 6.30 pm through the night.

When I weaned my DS I just let the milk feeds drop naturally, where he was less interested in a feed. I didn't really introduce snacks instead until more like 11 months.

As for "having" to give Petit Filous... words fail me. Do these HV get sponsored by Yoplait?! If you want to give a dairy based snack then plain full fat Greek yoghurt is ideal - high in protein and no added sugar. You can add fruit, fruit purée etc if you want to flavour it.

I really don't think you are doing anything "wrong" and the HV should not have given you such a hard time!

I wouldn't worry about being on the 91st centile. And your HV sounds very poor. But, we have worked towards less milk and more food. I believe the general Idea is to make sure your LO isn't turning down food and filling up on milk.

DD is almost 9mo and in the last few weeks, we have dropped a bottle and ramped up food portions.

But - we were on 4 x 9oz bottles! We've dropped to 3 x 9ox bottles. My HV (who sounds much nicer / more sensible than yours) suggested we try to move to just 2 bottles by her first birthday but to try to make sure she gets at least a pint of "milk" a day. Pre-1yo this should be formula or BM to make sure she gets the right vitamins but you can count other dairy towards her 1 pint (so, for example, yoghurt counts).

Most of what DD eats is homemade too - either an Annabel Karmel type-recipe (which I batch cook at weekends and freeze in ice cubes) or I give her what we've had if its appropriate (so she gets a portion of chicken chasseur and potatoes mushed down; but I don't give her ours if it's particularly salty or if it's a Dominos night ). We use pouches occasionally if we're out.

To increase her food, I did a few things:

• add in finger foods with meals where possible (usually just buttered bread.). She mostly sucks off the butter but a calorie is a calorie!! It also keeps her busy whilst the main event is cooling.
• I started to chuck in an extra ice cube to portions. Then when she was finishing that, chuck yet another into later portions. Ive found ice cube portions to be a really easy way to start increasing portion sizes without a load of faff.
• always add in a pudding to lunch and dinner (either fruit purees that I make and freeze; a mashed up banana or several massive spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt - Lidl do it by the bucket load! Get full fat. DD loves it without any fruit added and I'd rather everything she ate wasn't sweet).

HTH.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. DD is 9 months and still bf and we dropped the morning feed about a month ago, but only because she wasn't bothered about it. We brought lunch forward a bit to compensate.

If she wasn't eating solids because she was full up then that would be a different matter, but 5-6oz 4 times a day sounds ok to me.

I honestly don't think you are doing anything wrong!
Why would you choose to give sugary yoghurts!
That's an odd piece of advice!
Your dd sounds like she is doing well!
Trust your instincts! You know her better than anyone!

Thank you everyone! You've made me feel much better, like you say wiggle I know my baby and i think we're going in the right direction, in fact I was feeling really proud of what a varied diet she eats and how she'll try anything and then felt a bit rubbish after today!

You've given me some good ideas too of how to move forward so thank you all !!

Her height hasn't been measured since birth culture and it was mentioned then how long she was. She's as tall as my friends 1yr old!