Could you give me a 'day in the life' of your 6 month old?

[magpie17]

Sorry for the weird title but my DS is coming up for 6 months so all thoughts have turned to weaning! The thing is, he currently has 5 7oz bottles (formula fed) per day which he mostly finishes, and I can't figure out how you drop the milk and get him into food?

I want to do BLW mainly because I'm lazy, he wakes at 7am and goes to bed about 7.30pm. About three to four short naps. Everyone seems to say you keep on with the milk and add in bits of food but I feel like I'll be feeding him all day and can't work out how to fit it in?

E.g. This morning, up at 7am, bottle at 7.30. So when would I give breakfast? Before the bottle? After? Later on? (After nap?). What do you do? I'm so confused!

Also, I take it you make porridge/weetabix with formula?

Help! Tell me how you manage it all please...

For the first few weeks I would keep all the bottles. Just add a little after

Ie 7oz bottle at 7.30am, give a bit of your breakfast/ some banana or similar at 8am when your eating. Just a few small spoons equivalent

If you put a few spoons of say your porridge in a bowl for him and give him a spoon and let him do it himself bare in mind most won't actually go in him mouth at first so he will be hungry without the same milk. He will dip spoon in and lick or use fingers so most on him/ table at first

After around 2 weeks of you see that food is actually going in ( nappies will change!), then you can begin to reduce bottles. So maybe reduce all to 6ozs at first, then move mid morning and after noon ones to 4oz in a cup rather than bottle but keep am, lunch and pm at 6oz in bottle at first. Gradually decreasing them in size and moving off of bottle.
Aim is no bottles by around 1 year old. And having milk ( regular cows milk by 1 year) with breakfast, afternoon snack and before bed still but in a cup at table not bottle

My babies just coming up for 7 months. Also formula fed. I was led to believe that you dont drop milk until they are starting to eat "properly" ie more than a couple of mouthfuls at a time

Our routine has so far been:

7.30 - bottle
8.30 - breakfast (porridge/shredded wheat/toast fingers
10.30 - bottle
12ish - lunch (normally fingers foods)
1.30 - bottle
4.30 - dinner (current favourite is mashed sweet potato with chicken) followed by another bottle
7 bottle & bed

I havent considered when to drop a bottle as DD only takes 5oz with each one so im loathe to drop one. So will gladly follow to see what advice you are given

I use a splash of whole milk in cereal. As long as no dairy allergy can use cows milk in food prep, just not as a drink.

Talking of drinks, i also offer water in her sippy cup alongside every meal to varying degrees of success

To start off with your LO doesn't need 3 meals a day, just tastes of different foods for a while ( food is for fun until 1 ). I'd pick a point in the day when he's not tired or overhungry, I used to do about an hour after a bottle.

My DS is one now and since he was about 9 months our routine has gone roughly like this:

7:30 - wake and milk
8:30 - breakfast
11:30 - milk
12:30- lunch
3:30 -milk and snack
5:00 - tea
7:30 milk

He still has a lot of milk but isn't very interested in the 3:30 bottle so will drop this soon ( he was the same as your DS having 5 but I dropped one about 10 months old ).

Once you get into weaning you'll figure out your own schedule based on what you have to do during the day, when your DS seems hungriest etc... don't worry too much about it though, it will just fall into place over time. And for a while it does seem like the whole day os based around food and milk so no help there sorry.

Oh and from 6 months he can have cows milk on cereal so you don't need to faff around with formula.

Oh pressed post to soon...

HOWEVER at the start i just picked at time after baby fed, had nap, was content then gave her some food. Its all about introducing new textures. Dont be surprised if baby turns nose up at food etc try another spoonful. Dd doesnt thank you for white potato, sweet potato is wolfed down

This is all really useful thank you! comeagain your day looks doable to me because he gets bottles on about the same schedule as yours so I can see where the food would fit in.

I feel really apprehensive about weaning for some reason, I had a LOT of trouble breastfeeding and it was a very stressful and anxious time for us (ended up formula feeding from about six weeks) so I think I have some residual anxiety about the whole issue of eating. I also don't feel very supported by DH when it comes to this stuff 'whatever you think is best' tends to be the answer when I ask...

I was the same at the start of weaning OP. (Although some of that is related to my own terrible eating habits.)

The thing that has helped me is not to get bogged down in the whole blw or traditional weaning debate. My DD has proved that when she's had enough there is no feeding allowed, that sometimes she likes to be spoon fed, that sometimes she wants to feed herself with spoon or sometimes she wants to pick food up.

As long as she manages something at each meal, im happy. Its fun though. Get yourself a wipeable tablecloth or something for floor to catch food thats dropped

My ds has just turned 7 months. His day goes like this.

7am wake up and 8oz bottle
10.30 breakfast of porridge or weetabix made with his formula and half a bottle
2pm 8oz bottle
5pm evening meal
8pm 8oz bottle and bed

Where he has meals he was having a full bottle but as his food intake has gradually increased, the milk has decreased. We've cut out the 5pm bottle in the last few days.

In a few weeks I'm going to move his breakfast to 7am and offer him some lunch at around 11.30, I'll have to see how it works around his naps and mid morning milk.

In the very beginning I just offered him solids as and when. Been weaning 5 weeks now.

Don't worry though, you'll soon figure out your own routine.

The 6 month old I look after

7am Breakfast - oatibix with breast milk
7.30 Bottle 5-8oz
11am Lunch - mashed puree of some sort; sweet potato, fish pie
11.30 Bottle 5-8oz
2.30 Bottle 5-8oz
4.30 Dinner - mashed puree of some sort
6 Bottle 5-8oz