Timing of solid meals

[Jacksmybaby]

Just about to start weaning DS (6 mths) and not sure how to time his solid meals in relation to his milk feeds / nap times. HV says half way in between milk feeds eg 2 hrs after milk, but that clashes with naps. Annabel Karmel says half way through a milk feed. His current routine (roughly) is:
7 am milk
8.45-9.45 sleep
10.30/11 milk
12.30-2 sleep
2.30/3 milk
4.30-5 sleep
6.00/6.30 milk
7.00/7.30 bed.
11.00 pm wake for milk.

Was thinking of starting with one solid meal at 11.30/12 ish but not sure how to time it so he is not too full from previous milk feed and not too sleepy before nap. Know I can use trial and error to play around with times but hoping to have a plan in place before I start so as not to mess him around too much! Any suggestions on what timings worked for you? And also how to go about reducing milk feeds - did your DCs just naturally start drinking less? (We are FFing).

to begin with the amounts are tiny and it is just to get them used to the sensation of eating and the different tastes. Different babies are more receptive at different times so i would just try and see what works best. In a few weeks time you will find that the three meal a day structure starts appearing

I broadly followed Gina Ford's structure which says to start introducing solids at the 11am feed. Not breakfast because they are too hungry, not tea in case it upsets their tummy and you wind up with a sleepless night. It made sense to me.

Once you know that they're okay with a certain type of food, move it to tea-time and introduce something else at 11am. If you use baby rice, she suggests mixing it with apple or pear to prevent constipation.

She also suggests giving half the milk, then the solids and then the rest of the milk to ensure the babies don't cut back too quickly. I wouldn't worry too much about reducing milk feeds at this stage as it's likely to be a few months down the line before you have to deal with that.

HTH.

Thanks. Mumpbump, what time do you mean by tea-time?

DS was fed on demand & we never had any set pattern to the day, even for our own mealtimes so we just went with the flow, offering milk whenever he looked like he wanted it or asked for it & then offered solids when we ate our meals. He slept through lunch for many months at first so didn't have that until he was 10-ish months old....he was usually too full at breakfast from his first feed of the day (although that changed depending on how soon after getting up we had breakfast)...and he usually ate something with us at supper as he was always awake then! He gradually started sleeping less and taking more solids until he was eating something at every mealtime...so then we introduced snacks in the morning & afternoon...& now at age 3 he has pretty much kept the same pattern - he eats all his meals with us & has snacks when he asks for them..and has gradually started having less & less milk so now he has maybe 4 feeds a day on average.

I started in the evening - about 5pm with DS on the basis that when sleeping at night those were the biggest breaks between eating. Depends on your baby though and when you think DS is most hungry.

I think she has a 17h milk feed in her routines so you start with tea then and gradually push it back to later. I guess for your, it would be the 15h feed, perhaps. So you would introduce solids at about 11am then after a few days move whatever it is to 15h. Then over the course of a few weeks, start to push the solids back to more conventional lunch/tea-time. She introduces breakfast last because (I think) your baby might be hungry and get frustrated if it hasn't mastered the art of solids...

Although I know she provokes a strong reaction on here, I found her weaning book very helpful. You also start with one tsp of baby rice and then after a few days increase it to two. I must say that ds never ate anywhere near her suggested amounts, but it was helpful to have a guideline for when to increase the quantity a bit.

Your routine is exactly the same as mine!
I have also just started weaning. I gave ds his food at around 12 so there is time for the milk to go down and so he is a bit hungry.
we now do:

7am milk , 7.30 food (started this one at 8am then got closer to the milk feed as I slightly reduced the milk feed)

11 milk (only 4 oz) then immediately followed by food (hoping to push this nearer 12 though)

last to be introduced was tea-time..
5.45 milk 6.30 food.
hth
(obviously these are rough times... )

FWIW I had exactly the same routine and started with 11am milk being half milk, then food and cut down amount given at 2.30...just read rest of thread and gina it is. Was easy to push meal times later. My big thing was not interfering with sleep times as that was going so well!!

Agree that the Gina method is a good one, and by the look of things, your lo is on a Gina-ish routine for sleep too, so I bet it would fit in well.

As for reducing milk feeds, it happened naturally - I found that by doing the Gina method of offering half the milk, followed by solids, followed by more milk, after a few weeks, my ds wasn't interested in the second offering of milk. He also dropped his 10.30 pm feed on his own accord. He's now 8 months and I still offer 4 oz milk before lunch and tea, as that way I know he's getting enough milk - he has 7 oz first thing and just before bed.

It took a bit of trial and error to get the timings right and we don't do the Gina routine exactly now - I don't give a mid afternoon bottle, just has his tea at 4.30 ish - but I think it's a very good place to start, you can tweak it as time goes by to what suits you and your baby.

Good Luck

I'm also broadly following the GF timings (dd is nearly 8 mths)and it seems to be working well - wish I had read it earlier.

6.30am ish - breastfeed on waking
7.30 - breakfast then continue breastfeed
9.15am - 10am nap
11.45am - lunch
12.30am - 2.30pm nap
2.30pm - breastfeed
5pm - tea
7pm - breastfeed then bed
10.30pm - breastfeed

so I'm roughly alternating milk feeds and solids. Until a couple of weeks ago I was doing a milk feed at 11 then solids lunch at 12.30 - these two have now merged together to be lunch at 11.45.

Thanks all for advice. V amused the routine has ended up being gina-like: read half the book when he was born, swore I would never follow it, and he just fell naturally into that routine of his own accord, had not realised how similar it actually is to the "CLB"!

I am starting BLW in a couple of weeks and wondering when is best time to offer food. His routine most days is something like this:

7.30 awake & feed
9.30-10 nap
10.30 feed
12-1.30 nap
1.30 feed
3.30-4.15 sleep
4.30 feed
6.30 feed
7.30 bed

We normally eat breakfast and lunch while he's napping, and dinner once he's in bed! so need to move our mealtimes too. Also do we start with breakfast, lunch and tea from day one, or start with one or the other til it's established?

nah, just take things as they come, Meg. maybe offer stuff to play with once or twice a day, say after the 10.30am feed and after a while between the 1.30 and 3.30 feed and sleep. it's just for the sensation in the beginning, so it doesn't matter if you're out and about, just grab a rice cake and give the baby some bits and pieces off your plate.

the only thing i would say is that i wouldn't introduce anything at teatime for a while as you run the risk of the baby filling up on less calorific food than milk and then, horror of horrors, their sleeping can go to pot.

good luck, i think it took me a few months to get into any sort of 3 meals a day routine... but then i am a kinda slapdash person.