Which to prioritise- food or formula weaning?

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DS 8 months is EBF. He will taste food but won't eat more than one mouthful a day. He also currently won't take a bottle. I don't go back to work until Dec so I have a while but I can't tackle 2 issues at once and I'm getting confused.

So which should I focus on, getting him to take formula or eat food?

Neither.
Doesnt need to drink formula at all, doesnt nerd to drink from a bottle.
By dec he will be over 1 year old. You can keep breastfeeding him as normal for now and by 1 year old you can only breastfeed when you come home from work, so 1x per day or only before sleep or whatever routine you set. During the day he will have food. It is a long time and it will all change in 5 months. Do not worry about it. Probably at some point will start eating.

Agree with zahrah. I went back to work when my little girl (breastfed, bottle refuser, spoon refuser) was just less than 12mo. She hardly ate anything, I was terribly worried, but she was absolutely fine! She drank water from a sippy cup and started eating more and more, started taking a spoon as well! It's amazing how much they will eat when they see the other kids doing it. Just keep doing what you're doing. He'll get it in the end

Thanks. Ideally I would rather not be breastfeeding at When I return to work (it's an hours drive away) and I guess I'm keen to get to a point that I can leave him for a good few hours without him needing to feed from me which is why I'm keen to try to focus on some kind of weaning

By December he will be able to have cows' milk so won't need formula then either. You would probably do better to just offer a mouthful of water from a cup at this stage so he gets used to that and can transition onto it.

You say he won't eat more than one mouthful but are you spoon feeding? If so, it could be that he would rather have finger foods and feed himself. I know it is easy to say, but just try to relax and keep offering food.

What food are you offering at the moment?

At 1 year old you will be able to leave him for all day without bf. i think you are not fully realizing how much it all will change by that time. It was the same for me, unthinkable how she will cope. Even on first days of work it seemed like day took forever. But they will act differently when you are not around, they will not even think of milk and be totally fine. They will start eat food when milk source is not around. Thats how it was for us, she started to eat good meals after I went back to work. She did mot even take expressed milk when I tried, not from bottle, not from cup, after 2 days of me being at work she happily drunk expressed from cup.

Thank you, your posts do help. I guess I just like to plan in advance as he seems to take quite well to gradually exposure to change (for examine, I'll be starting him in nursery one hour a week next month as he does well when he gets to know people a little at at a time)

Started with spoon feeding which he took a little more of but he wasn't enjoying it and we moved to finger foods which he will happily play with and put his mouth but very little of it is being swallowed. I think we would have more luck if I could focus on either preparing food or preparing formula.

Sounds like food is the way to go? I've tried with sippy cups which he's just starting to take water from but currently won't take milk from.

I just would like to have completely stopped BF a good few weeks before I return to work ideally

My dd reverse cycled when I went back to work at 8mo. She'd happily go all day without milk and have a catch up when I got home. In the early days she also ate much better at nursery than she did at home.

If you definitely want to stop feeding though remember to drop feeds gradually to prevent possible engorgement, blocked ducts and mastitis.

I guess it's part of what I want to avoid. He feeds every 2-3 hours at night now anyway so ideally I don't want him feeling all night to make up for not feeding in the day 😊