When do you go to two/three meals?

[NoviceKnitter]

Hi, we've just started dd weaning. Been slightly halfhearted, bito f finger food, bit of purees which she loves and grabs the spoon and feeds herself, bit of porridge. I'm just not really clear how to pace it and how much she can eat. I know bf is main source of nutrition for year one, so how much to give? (I recently started trying porridge for supper to calm her evening cluster feeding habit, but now have an evening wide awake baby so am going to stop that particular plan!)

Thanks

Hi NK
It's great to hear that your DD is taking to weaning so well.
When it comes to how much she should eat, you really need to take your cues from her.
She will probably eat as much as she feels like at the time. You will notice patterns, but you will also find that the amount she eats varies from day to day and meal to meal.
It is unlikely that she will eat too much, so within reason, as long as you notice no bad side effects, you can probably continue to feed her for as long as she's interested.

Most people start on one meal a day at about 6 months, move up to 2 meals after a few weeks and then to 3 meals a day from about 9 months.
It's a good idea to follow your DD's lead on that too.
It sounds like she's ready to try quite a few new foods, but it's good to introduce them early in the day for the first time, just in case she reacts badly to anything.

From personal experience, I found that my DD enjoyed eating and was very interested, but the amount of food she actually consumed wasn't very large until I stopped BFing. At that point her intake suddenly increased dramatically and now I have no idea where she puts it all! So don't worry too much about the volume of food as long as she's feeding well at the breast or bottle.

Thanks Ruth, that's really helpful. The other thing I'm unclear about is at what stage to present her with "meals" i.e. different food combinations, balanced diet etc (and when she can just have something I've cooked for us for example, if done without salt etc) - at the moment I'm just giving her one food at a time e.g. for lunch today she had some mashed avocado (which she loves) - probably only about two teaspoons in all and probably would have eaten more but I didn't have any more as only half hte avo was any good...

In general I feel I;ve been a bit random about it all so far and need to get more of a routine going, but I guess it's very early days.

I too started by giving DD single foods etc at the very beginning, but I quite quickly started to introduce combinations. I didn't want her to get too bored!!
Avocado's a good one isn't it. DD loves that too!

Right from the beginning I gave her the bits and pieces of our meals that she could eat. I would puree the same vegetables etc, later just steaming (microwaving!) them for a bit longer or cutting them up a bit smaller.

I wouldn't really say that she started eating the same meals as us until about a year though.
At that point she could eat just about anything as long as it was cut up small enough, soft enough and wasn't too strongly flavoured.

In many ways, you just have to learn by trial and error. She'll soon let you know what she really loves and hates. Also, you'll soon learn to tell when she's had enough or wants more.

Thanks, that's kind of what I'm doing but good for reassurance.