Couple of weaning questions - water and routine...

[NoviceKnitter]

Hello

We've just started weaning DD, 6 months. It's fun and amazing, but I must say I feel a bit sad that it's the beginning of the end of bfing (tho not for a while.)

We've been doing a combo of baby led weaning finger foods (first carrot in nappy yesterday! and she enjoys sucking apple and pear) but we're also doing purees as she loves porridge and grabs the spoon and stuffs it in her mouth.

Anyway, I have a couple of questions.

1. She loves sucking the flannel in the bath. Is she after water and should I start giving it her?

1. Although she has settled into a nap routine we've never really established a feeding routine as she's completely demand bfed. I'd quite like to try and get one in place now tho as I think she'd be happier and me better organised about making sure she has what she needs at the right time. Any tips?

if it's any help, DS3 only started getting into a nap routine once he'd started moving and it didn't seem to have anything to do with his food!

re the water thing - I give him a beaker of water at lunch and tea and he drinks it or doesn't. He also chews the flannel which I think may be more of a chewing thing rather than a drinkiong thing IYSWIM!

Just give her water in a tommee tippee cup or something whenever you're offering food and she'll take what she needs. Its still mostly about the milk though until they're one so don't worry overmuch if she doesn't take much as if you're still b/f on demand she should get the hydration she needs from that I think.

Oh, and I'm not a good person to ask about routine! We just give DD breakfast, lunch and tea at roughly the same time each day, generally when we have it apart from tea and she naps around that whenever she needs too!

sorry - misread what you said about naps! DS3 feeds relatively routinely now (he is 10m) - first thing, mid morning, mid afternoon, bed time and about 11pm (and usually another on after that ) but you will find with a BLW baby, they will still need lots of breastfeeds as they don't eat as much quantity.

Thank you - maybe the flannel thing is an olive oil craving - we put it in her bath!

Re feeding, she feeds most in the afternoon and evening - but that's another story...

don't know if this helps but we've done:
bf then food at around our mealtimes until ds had the idea of food not coming from mummy, with bf in betweeen as demanded by ds.
Then food followed by milk at mealtimes, once he was OK about being offered food first when hungry, keeping bf in between as demanded.
Now no milk with meals (has sips of water) and bf in between meals/bedtimes...
ds1 hardly fed at all between meals.
ds2 fed about 8 (or some other big number) times a day 2 months ago, now 3 bf a day - and 3 meals. He's 8 months.
Definitely helps me to have a meal routine as otherwise I annoy ds by trying to offer food when he's not really hungry and more interested in toys...