when and how do i drop milk feeds?

[booboobunny]

my lo is 6 months and a week and i've had him on solids for a little over 3 weeks as milk just wasn't doing the job anymore (he's 96th percentile for weight and height). he has taken to solids really well, but for the life of me i can't remember how and when to drop milk feeds, this is quite depressing as my dd is only 22 months old! can anyone help as i don't want to now overfeed him given that he is a big boy already.

he has been formula fed since he was 2 weeks and has been on 7ozs 5 times a day (7,11,3,7,11). it was easy to add in solids to begin with as obviously the milk stays the same, but as i increase the solid intake i know i have to drop feeds and reduce the amount of milk he has to round 600ml. an anyone advise how i do this and which feeds go when? i can't believe i don't know given how recently i did this, but there you are...!

I only have one DS..so it may not be the right way but this is what I did. When I started him on solids I gave milk first then solids. Once he got established I then swapped this round at lunchtime (his largest solid meal), over a few weeks he drank less and less (and ate more) then dropped this feed. You may find tht as his solids increase, he may not want as much milk or some of the milk feeds inbetween meal times IYSWIM. Over time, my boy just refused the milk at certain times and took less so I then stopped offering that feed once i had a couple of days of complete refusal at that time. He is now 10 months and on 3 bottles of milk per day.

you dont really have to do it for him as his milk will naturally decrease as the solids increase. At 6 months ds had 5 milk feeds and he only dropped to 4 feeds at 8 months when he gave up his night feeds. He then lost interest in the mid morning and mid afternoon feeds and was down to 2 feeds by 10 1/2 months. Let your lo give cues as to which feeds he is least interested in and then decrease them accordingly until he doesnt need them any more. you might find the 11pm feed goes first followed by the 11am and 3pm feeds and then you would be left with the morning and bedtime feeds.

Just an idea, if you're sure he's getting enough food I'd start by halving the amount of milk in the bottle for the day bottle or the 11pm, then once that's ok either try half the amount for it and another one you'd most like to get rid of and see how he goes. It's up to you, think about your preference, you may want to get rid of the day time bottle and bring the others forward a bit so you will eventually have the last bottle at 7pm. My memory is a bit fuzzy too. I used this technique to switch from formula to milk with no dramas.

thanks all i think there's a lot of sense there. i was thinking much the same myself today actually as the poor wee fella was really struggling to get through his 11 and 3 bottles and that's with only 2 solid meals, so i thought i'd reduce the amount in these feeds to whatever he was managing to get through and see how we go. just very disappointed that i really can't remember a thing about how i did it the first time and it was only just over a year ago....