at 6 months, bottles or weaning or both?

[alright]

in 6 weeks my LO will be 6 months and i want to go from breastfeeding to bottles but also to wean as well. im now thinking this might be too much at once so was going to swap to bottles for a month then wean at 7 months but now someones mentioned that wont do and they'll need solids before 7 months, i dont want to breastfeed longer than 6 months as ive got a lot on and wont be able to express for all the times i wont be around, can anyone give me a pointer what i can do here?

I would get as much advice as possible and talk to your health visitor and to a breastfeeding counsellor (they do support mums whatever their feeding choice). I recommend this charity www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/.
I wanted to stop bf at six months too but my daughter was very adamant on continuing bfeeding and it got easier when she got on solids, but if you still feel you want to stop, do it gradually, going cold turkey is very fraught for baby and painful for you.

guidelines are to start weaning slowly from 6 mths (see your HV who'll be able to give you loads of weaning advice). It's really important you don't just stop bf suddenly, start dropping one bf feed every few days so your milk supply goes down slowly and there's less risk of your milk ducts becoming blocked.

yes i was thinking of gradually reducing breastfeeds replacing with bottles one by one over the course of a month then weaning at 7 months, is it ok to not wean until 7 months?

dropping bf a feed at a time should help reduce any discomfort for you and help your dd adjust. you might want to keep a few feeds going a lot longer - no need for 'all or nothing' unless it's what you want. eg you could keep the morning and evening feeds going a lot longer than the day time feeds if it is mostly daytimes that you won't be around
it's hard to say how your dd will take to solids. my boys were fine but dd has been very slow to show any enthusiasm.

every baby is different so it depends on your baby and what they're ready for. Guidelines say babies will need to be intoduced to solids to optimise their nutrition after 6 months, I'd speak to your HV to discuss.

would it be better to wean at 6 months and swap to bottles at 7 months?

Alright, is there allergy in the family?

I'm asking because apparently the only thing that's really been shown to work in preventing allergy, is breastfeeding at the time that food is introduced. It seems as if the immune factors in breastmilk are important at this stage.

What that implies is that it'd be better to keep the breastfeeding going while you start food. Can you carry on with morning and evening feeds as morocco suggests, would that be practical at all?

yes i think it would be worth it then to continue breasfeeding and wean first. will swapping to bottles after a month of weaning be ok, i dont want my LO to end up constipated or something coz of the introduction of solids then the introduction of formula too closely together or am i over worrying??

I don't know about constipation - but for what it's worth, neither of mine was constipated at all when weaning, so it doesn't happen every time.

Bumping in case anyone else can answer.