Bottomless 6 month old... someone please tell me if I'm overfeeding him because it seems like a LOT of food!

[JamesAndTheGiantBanana]

My ds is one week off 6 months, we started weaning him on purees a month or so ago, in no particular order. We started him off with a teaspoon or two, now he eats whole jars of babyfood at a meal and still has room for more. He eats everything and anything, including finger foods. He's a bit of a whopper, must be over 20lb now, looks closer to 9 months.

Here's a typical days food/milk:

7am- 8oz hungry baby milk
9.30am- bowl of porridge or baby cereal made up with 4oz milk.
12pm- 8oz milk
2pm- lunch- some kind of fruit/veg puree
5pm- dinner- veg puree or jar food, often has petit filous afterwards
7pm- 8 or 9oz milk

He also has a couple of snacks during the day like orange segments, ricecakes or pear.

I've never actually managed to fill him up with food (he does get full on milk) he never refuses the spoon/proferred bit of food. Today for his tea he had a heinz can of spag bol followed by a jar of pear yoghurt. It seemed like masses of food and he took it in his stride!

I am looking out for signs of him being full such as closing his mouth, spitting out the food, turning away etc but he doesn't do any of it, just troughs his way through it all. Often I decide for him that he's had enough as it seems like he might pop.

I'm overweight and so I'm very conscious that I don't want to pass on my weight problem. I'm scared I'm overfeeding him but have no basis of comparison. Can anyone tell me if his diet is ok or if it needs adjusting?

Anyone about?

Hiya, DD is 6 months too and always been a hungry baby. Weaned her about 5 weeks ago cos she was starving and I reckon she has about the same to eat as your ds in a day. Not sure about milk quantities as she's BF but probably about the same. I usually just stop if I think she's had a good amount and if she's still really hungry she screams for more. Some of the time I think she just eats cos it's there! I'd discuss it with your Health Visitor if you're worried but as long as he's having healthy stuff and not loads of chocolate or anything I'm sure it'll sort out. Just keep an eye on his weight and as long as he's not shooting off the charts then he obviously needs the calories. I think they're growing so much at this age that they burn it off once they get mobile. Hope that helps!

Have you reduced his milk at all, since starting weaning? If not, then you are not overfeeding.

If you have reduced his milk then you may want to try giving some milk mid-afternoon, before tea.

Otherwise, it actually sounds fine to me. DD2 will eat anything, just not very much of it and even so this doesn't sound like a lot of food, tbh.

When you introduce meats (or vegetarian substiture) and bread/ pasta/ rice type stuff to the main meals, then you mgiht find that his volume of food decreases. Purees aren't very filling or high in calories.

Not so much reduced his milk as changed it. He was having 7oz of first milk four times a day but he takes so long to feed sometimes (up to 3/4 of an hour when he's fidgeting badly) I seemed to be doing nothing but bottle or spoon feeding him from morning til night.

And then he started waking in the night hungry, so I changed his formula to hungry baby milk, then later tried upping his bottles to 8oz. Then the mid afternoon one just kinda disappeared because he was having three meals. There was no time for it in the day iyswim.

I need to start giving him sips of water with meals, as I worry he'll get dehydrated.

So the volume of food seems ok then?

That sounds fine. He was on 28oz milk, now he has 24, plus the 4 in his porridge. Perfect. He's increasing his food intake, but not decreasing milk. Later in his first year he'll probably start to reduce the milk a little.

You're doing absolutely fine. And I know exactly what you mean about not being able to fit it all in. Mine is the same. I can't give her milk between 4pm and bedtime or she actually gets sick having her last feed.

You can consider, or speak to HV about using a follow on milk after he's 6 months, so that he gets some extra iron.

Oh, incidentally, this might be a duff question, but is he on fast flow teats for his milk?

If he's fidgeting, it might be because the milk isn't coming fast enough. Just a thought.

We have slow, medium, fast and variflow teats in the house, he tends to dislike the fast and variflow ones as he has a voracious suck and he coughs and splutters a lot as he struggles with the gush of milk. When he behaves he can empty a bottle in under ten minutes. The first and last bottles of the day go that way but the middle bottle is a pita with him trying to see his toys/daddy/the tv!

Glad the volume of milk seems ok, I will consider putting him on the follow on milk as iron deficiencies run in our family. Thanks for that, it wouldn't have occurred to me!

Thanks for the advice, all!

I remember worrying about the same thing as it seems so much! It is amazing how quickly they can up their intake. I put some of it down to novelty value.

One suggestion I would make is to swap the Pettit Filous for Natural yoghut and add some pureed fruit to sweeten it. You can puree a whole heap in one go and freeze it in ice cube trays and add one cube to about 3 tblsp yoghurt. It not only works out cheaper but it is better for LO as there are no added chemicals.

I also found that once I introduced meat e.g sliced chicken breast left from Sunday Dinner she woke less often, something to do with the Protien I think? You could add some lentils to the veg Puree to bulk it up and be more filling and nutricious.

I like the natural yoghurt idea, thanks! I do puree up apple, pear, prunes, apricots etc for him and add it to the petit filous. Never thought about chemicals as I thought it was for kids...

He already has meat in jar food but there's only like 3% meat in them, perhaps lentils would help to fill his hollow legs!

There are yeo valley organic yoghurts in tubes which don't seem to have loads of crap in them. They do contain sugar, but they're handy for popping in a bag if you're going out.

hello again, sorry to post and run last night, was shattered as DD has cold and being a bit hard work! Would def agree about chicken and protein stuff. DD started having small amounts of chicken and mince (used a couple of Annabel Karmel recipes which were quite simple) and she seems to eat less on days when she has those so you can consider that. Honstly, I'm sure it's fine. I was worried about DD eating so much, esp as she seemed to leap from a couple of teaspoons to having 3 meals a day and lots of food in only a couple of weeks but she's growing well and not being sick so I think she must need it. As long as they're eating healthy stuff and not loads of sugar I don't think you can massively overfeed them. Looking at a lot of the other threads on MN I'm just glad to have a baby that eats well, think it's much more stressful if your baby WON'T eat anything than if they're gobbling up everything! Hope you're feeling more positive today.

Thanks Lmum your post was really reassuring. Yes I'm feeling better about his eating habits. I'm just desperate for him not to be the fat kid at school like I was. I know if he is everyone will say "look what she's done to him"

He isn't having anything sugary (unless you count stealth-sugar in the petit filous?) it's mainly just porridge, cereal, unsweetned fruit, veg, jars of meat dinners as I can never afford organic meat, fromage frais and yoghurt.

Hope your dd is better soon, there's nothing worse than when they're poorly.

HI, Lmum here have just changed my name as it was a bit boring!Thanks for asking after my LO - she seems fine this morning, even though I'm knackered! I'm sure your little boy will grow up really healthy, you obviously want the best for him and are giving him a really good diet so I wouldn't worry. We all want the best for our kids and all worry that just by being us we'll manage to mess them up. As for the fromage frais I was really shocked when my friend told me how much sugar was in them. I thought they were a healthy pudding but apparently not! I just give DD pureed fruit like you, sneaky yogurt companies can do without my money. Glad you're feeling more positive.

Sounds ok to me very healthy, healthy snacks are encouraged and is your ds putting on steady weight if so i wouldn't worry sounds like a normal healthy child with a good appetite and as long as not eating rubbish, which he isn't from what you say, carry on your doing a fabulous job, and as said when he gets mobile he will be burning a lot off so will need more food anyway!!

My son is 6.5 months and is also around 20lb. He loves his food as well. I find that my own cooking fills him up more, as I cook pasta and vegetables. He also has started to feed himself at lunch, and you would be surprised at how much he can eat.

My nephew was HUGE when he was a baby, ate everything in site, and now he is the slimmest little but ever, all just dropped off him once he started crawling.

They say double birth weight at 6mths and triple birthweight at a year but all babies differ and as you say they lose it once they move around. I myself was huge as a baby and lost it all and been pretty small most off my life, that was until i started having babies!!!

Yeah I've been putting off going to see the hv in case she comments on his weight to be honest. I'd rather ask Mumsnet than consult a health visitor, because at least here you can take an average of all the opinions you get, but with a hv you only get hers and they aren't always that helpful.

He's showing signs of wanting to get moving, so hopefully it'll all balance itself out soon enough.

if you think about the phenomenal amount of growing that they do at this age, it's not surprising that they eat a lot. it calms down...