Anyone else spoon-feeding and formula feeding an 8 month old?

[MeadowHay]

Well, I don't exclusively spoon-fed, we tend to start meals giving her things to self-feed while we eat, then we spoon-fed her which is generally a pre-made baby food (not looking for comments on the fact that we feed from jars/pouches please...). She has 4 bottles of formula a day - first thing in the morning (normally around 7am) she drinks 9oz. Then around 12pm she drinks about 8oz usually. Then again around 4pm she will drink about 8oz and then before bed, around 7/half 7 she will drink about 7oz.

We've only started spoon-feeding her with most meals now because her intake when she is self-feeding is basically zero (I can tell from looking and also from her poo!), and she is already drinking so much formula I can't see how it would make sense to increase it even more especially when she is getting to the age when they're due to start reducing their milk feeds soon. When we spoon-feed, I currently give her up to half of a jar/pouch so that's around 60-75g, is that too little? However she will generally only eat that much if it's sweet puree, if it's something savoury she will usually eat about 3 spoons (if that!) and then refuse anymore anyway.

How much does your 8 month old drink in formula and how much puree do they eat? I ask more about puree as obviously with BLW you can't tell the quantities but mine seems to actually eat virtually none, and that's not enough when she's drinking this much milk still, surely?

Watching with interest (bump!) as my 8 month old doesn't eat much. I have no idea how much breast milk she's taking from me either. She seems a good weight though.

Occasional floret of broccoli/omelette or sucking on a piece of toast. Mainly spoon fed Ella's kitchen pouches (only still accepts 4month+ smoothness- hates textures in her mouth as she's always gagging but don't know if this is normal. Only has a couple of ice cubes worth of purée in each meal of three times a day. But yet she never cries etc when I take the food away. She definitely sees milk as her main food source.

Mine is 8.5m and now has about a pouch worth plus a bit of fruit and yogurt for lunch and dinner. Usually a weetabix for breakfast.

Her milk is about 6-7oz first thing, 6oz 2:30pm, 7oz 6:30pm and 3os at 10pm.

I am no expert! HV said this was fine though and to just give her as much solids as she wants, and she will naturally reduce her milk. Are you wanting her to eat more solids?

Do you give her milk or solids first at meal time?

DD will only eat 'stage 1' type purees too, she won't eat anything with lumps. Although she will eat thicker textured baby porridge as long as it's sweetened with fruit flavours, and she once had a good go at soup that herbs and barley bits in, and today she had a few spoons of mashed up baked beans so bit of a texture in that as well. We've been trying to give her a Cow and Gate jar of courgette pasta or something that was 7m+ on it but she gagged a lot at first and just like spits it out. She has a terrible sweet tooth, and she doesn't seem to understand how to chew and swallow anything that isn't liquid. The GP didn't seem concerned about this when I mentioned it to her the other day. I'm not bothered about her solid intake in and of itself, it's just she seems hungry if she's not being spoon-fed, she is downing her bottles and then crying more and having smaller gaps between them when she's not eaten much solids at a meal etc so I just don't want her to be hungry, that's all, and I don't think I can increase her formula intake even more given she already seems to drink more than any other baby of her age that I've met lol.

Oh and we give milk first but there's usually a gap, so we do milk in the morning around 7am, then breakfast will be anywhere from 8.30am to 10am depending on her morning sleep (she's a really erratic sleeper), then bottle around 12pm which is usually followed immediately by solid lunch, then bottle around 4pm, solid dinner around 6pm, and bottle around 7pm then bed.

Have you tried mashing or pureeing your food instead? The pouches and jars are so smooth then the next step can be a shock but if you pureed then mashed yourself you'd have more of a gradual increase?