BLW and breastfeeding

[Parky17]

Just looking for some guidance on how BLW and breastfeeding works. All the advice says to carry on breastfeeding as normal to start off with, but I can't find any info on what happens next and when. Everything seems aimed at formula fed babies as it talks about ounces and so on.

My little one is six months so atm I'm breastfeeding as normal. But when should I look to reduce the number of feeds?

Just to add, she's not exactly great at signalling whether she's hungry or not! So "on demand" doesn't really help haha. If my boob appears she'll drink!

Routine at the moment is breastfeeding after waking, after each nap (3 or 4 naps) and before bed time. And once or twice in the night.

I include her in our family meals re solids.

Thanks!

BLW works best with a breastfed baby, the muscles for chewing are better developed because of the sucking motion, and thebreastfedbaby has already been introduced to many flavours via the breast milk.
Sometimes mothers can feel pressured into limiting breastfeeds so that her baby will take more solid food but this can have the opposite effect. If your dd is happy and content after a breastfeed she may be more open to the idea of trying some new foods.
Solids during the first year are only meant to complement breastmilk, not take precedence over it or replace any breastfeedings. It is more of a way to add textures to their diet, to allow new experiences, and to help her develop hand/eye coordination through finger feeding.
Introduce your dd gradually to solid foods. For the first month (or two weeks at least), just offer solids once a day and continue breastfeeding as often as before. At about 7mo, add solids as her appetite increases, a few bites at a time, after her usual feed. It often works well to offer the solids about an hour after you nurse. If nursing has come before the solids you can continue feeding your baby the solids until she shows signs of fullness; i.e. turning her head, closing her mouth, batting at the spoon, wanting down, spitting the food out, etc. (trying to feed past this point is overfeeding). Most babies will balance their milk intake with their solid food intake well if you feed in this way. You don’t really have to worry if you’re giving baby too many solids – you can just go ahead and let her have as much as she wants.
All you need to do is to continue to offer foods. Don’t worry if she’s not interested or takes very small amounts. Your only true responsibility is what you offer and when you offer it, not whether or not she eats it. That has to be up to her.

Just start off breastfeeding as normal alongside introducing foods - we gave bits of what we were eating for our meals in finger-size portions - then you will naturally adjust your feeds depending on your baby's attitude to food. Remember - there is no such thing as too much breast milk, plus I bet your baby would find a way to ask you for it if she felt hungry 😊

I felt exactly the same as you, very confused and our health visitor's advice on breastfeeding isn't necessarily in line with being baby-led (by certain ages they should have a certain number of feeds - I just ignored this advice 🙈 and fed when it seemed right). Trust your mummy intuition because I bet you it'll be spot on!

Dd is one and I still bf on demand but we're the same as you she doesn't really ask so I just offer every few hours to see if she wants some. When we first started BLW I would offer breast half an hour before food so she was fed as food before one is for fun really. Now she's one I just feed her and bf at nap time/ when she's fussy or goes looking for it.
Don't worry about reducing feeds, if you've been feeding on demand it'll all work itself out naturally.

Thanks everyone!
I guess I'm a bit worried about overfeeding her! She doesn't seem to have an "I'm full" signal like other babies. Eyes are definitely bigger than her tummy!! It feels like a constant procession of milk and solids at the moment, haha. Off to see my mum in a week's time and I know she'll be wondering why I'm feeding her so often!!

Just remind your mum that a breast-fed baby cannot be overfed, and that babies can self-regulate their food intake themselves - they'll stop eating when they're full (I wish I was the same 😂😂).

If you get your baby weighed regularly then you'll be able to see on the weight graph that she's not putting on too much weight and you can show your mum that. My son eats a ridiculous amount of food but he's started to crawl and I think is just burning so much energy that he's constantly hungry! His weight gain is normal - some months he hasn't put on anything!

You could just say to your mum that you're following health visitor advice if she keeps on about it (she won't know). And if she mentions how she did things back when you were born, just say that lots of advice has changed since then because of new research. Generations are stuck in their ways when it comes to child-rearing! My Nan asks me if my son is "still having that horrible milk" every time I see her, because she and her friends all formula fed their babies and she finds breastfeeding unnecessary.

I found the diet just adjusted naturally. It's worth remembering that it's very common for babies to get quite chubby between 6 months and when they start to become more physically active (crawling, walking etc) and burn off the excess - it still amazes me how different DS looked in pictures at that age!

I don’t think you can feed a baby too often when they are bf and blw. I remember when my DD started on solids I had to carry food with me everywhere because she needed to snack so often. She was a huge baby and toddler, but is a thin and very tall child now. Don’t worry about it just go with the flow.

I did blw with my two breastfed babies. My two both took to solids very quickly, but didn't seem to cut down on their milk for the first few months. They were very chubby toddlers.