When do I serve solids before milk?

[weebump]

Hi all. I'm new here, so please be gentle!

I've been feeding 7 month old dd solids for about a month now. We've explored all the usual puréed veg and fruit, as well as a few self fed chunks and rice cakes with great success. These foods are served up within an hour of her milk feed, twice a day. What I'm not certain about though, is how long should I serve up solids after milk, and when should I serve up solids first? And then when do solids replace a milk feed? Should I just keep going as I am for another month or 2? Am I thinking about it too much? Help!

About nine months I think. For the first year though food is for fun and not the main source of nutrition. You sound like you are doing fine.

I didnt ever swap the order I gave solids and milk. I also gave solids in between milk and when ds lost interest in a milk feed it got replaced with a snack and drink of water e.g.

started as:
7am - milk
8am - breakfast
11am - milk
12pm - lunch
3pm - milk
5pm - dinner
7.15pm - milk

ended up as:
7.30/7.45am - cup of milk closely followed by breakfast
10/10.30am - snack plus water/juice
12pm - lunch
3pm - snack plus water/juice
5pm - dinner
7/7.15 - sometimes a cup of milk depending on how much he ate at dinner

The meals all stayed at the same time but the milk dropped till only 2 milk feeds were left by 11 months. DS had 5 feeds up till 8 months (1 was a night feed which he stopped by himself at 8 months), dropped to 3 feeds around 9 months (lost interest in the mid-morning milk) and dropped the last day feed (mid-afternoon) by 11 months.

Thanks for that Seona. Your starting routine looks very like ours. I think I'll just continue going as I am. I'm trying not to get in a flap about feeding times, and dd is doing very well weight wise. It's just that I was looking at Annabel Karmel's meal planner and couldn't quite figure out what she was suggesting with milk feeds.

Milk should be the main source of nutrition until your bsby is 12 months old, so I woudl offer milk and then food some time later until that age (is what I did for both DSs).
Annable Karmel is quite anti-milk I think so personally I wouldnt follow her regime.

I'm trying to remember the "food is fun until your one" mantra, whomovedmychocolate, especially when babs is finger painting with avocado all over the shop

Pannacotta, what makes you say AK's anti milk? She does point out the minimum requirements (between 500-600 ml or 18-21 fl oz) and that many mums rush to cut out milk feeds too soon. I quite like the book, and other than my confusion with the planner I think its a very helpful book. I think my confusion might stem from her trying not to offer too rigid a regime, just some suggestions as to how days could be planned. I'm curious about your opinion, because this is all relatively new to me.

weebump, I had the book when DS1 was small so its 3 years ago now, but I seem to remember the edition I had (was her famous book, the meal planner one) in her suggested time frame she talked about cutting our milk feeds within a few weeks of offereing solids and reducing milk right down to barely nothing well before a year. I also found it quite anti-breastfeeding.
I do think there are some good meal ideas but I didn't rate her suggestions on the milk issue.

I have the 2008 edition of the planner, so she might have revised her advice. I haven't read it all either, as I'm only at the 1st tastes bit. I'm definitely not taking her as gospel, though.