Milk with meals or between for 6 month old?

[m27]

My DD has been eating solids for 4 weeks now and loving it, but I'm confused about number of feeds she should be having and when. At the moment she has:

8am - breastfeed, then tub full of baby porridge with a banana mashed in
12pm - 8 ice cubes worth of veg plus baby rice, water to drink, then breastfeed
4pm - ditto. Sometimes with petit filous as well.
8pm - formula feed, usually between 8-12oz.

She's certainly got a very healthy appetite but if I was to follow Annabel Karmel to the letter, she'd be getting a milk feed mid morning and mid afternoon, and not with her meals. But then I'd be feeding every two hours which I haven't done since she was a newborn.

She's very happy (I think!) with what we've got going at the moment, but for all those experienced weaners out there, does this sound about right or should I be splitting the milk and solid feeds or offering more / less?

Advice much appreciated!

I don't have much experience, but it sounds like you're doing the right thing- offering milk and solids separately would be more like snacking, wouldn't it?
The only thing I've read that's a bit different is to offer milk first, then food, as they should still be getting most of their calories from milk.
hth

I didn't give milk and solids together as I didnt want ds's milj intake to drop too quickly so I gave milk feeds 4 hourly and solids in between e.g.

7am - milk
8am - solids
11am - milk
12pm - solids
3pm - milk
5pm - solids
7.15pm - milk
in the night till 8 months - milk

I treated the feeding solids more as an activity than a feed so I didnt consider it to be snacking.

I've always given milk in between food. Ours has been breakfast, milk, lunch, milk, dinner, milk and up till about 2 months ago (so 10 months) milk at 10/11 pm dream feed. She wouldn't ever take milk before breakfast - think she knew I was fobbing her off!

I stressed quite a bit at the beginning of weaning trying to work out what the 'right' timetable of solids v. bf were - of course there isn't one! This might have nothing to do with your situation but I was working on the same sort of schedule - solids followed by bf until I got onto a really good website (babysleepanswers) while trying to get my DD to sleep through the night. They suggested that by having a bf after the solids she would take less milk and would therefore not necessarily have enough during the day to last her through the night. They suggested organising it exactly like Seona1973 (except for a 6.30pm rather than a 7.15pm feed and a 10.30pm dreamfeed rather than a night feed) and within a couple of days of doing that she was sleeping through! All I can assume is that by having the bf before the solids they take more milk but somehow don't seem to be too full to eat (which I was worried would happen). We certainly have a very happy, satisfied baby at the moment!

Oh and my bub (6 months) is exactly the opposite to yours, Flossish! She won't even entertain solids for breakfast until she's had her milk - as far as she's concerned the fruity porridge I've so loving made for her is just the dessert to her milk main meal! They're funny buggers aren't they?!

Hi m27. Like you I read AK's book and got a bit confused about where she had put milk feeds in with solid feeds without explaining what to do. She seems to suggest offering milk first, the solids, and then mysteriously drops a feed somewhere then picks it up again. Here in Ireland our health board advises solids first then milk, but I hear lots of women here worrying if their lo is drinking enough milk. ANYWAY, I gave up worrying and through trial and error really, we have settled into our feeding routine.

My dd is now 9 months, and for the last 2 or 3 months she has her solids within an hour or so of a milk feed. So at 8 am she has a bottle, and then at 8.30/9 she'll have breakfast. After a snooze she has a bottle at 12 and then lunch at about 1. Bottle at 4.30/5, dinner at 6.
Basically she wont eat straight after a bottle, and won't drink enough milk if I fill her with solids. All her bottles have reduced over time quite naturally and her intake of solids has increased too, so it seems good and gradual weaning. Most importantly, she's v healthy and a good weight, so it works for her.

Don't fret about it, take your time, and let your lo be your guide.

Julietbat - wondered how much solids you were giving as the schedule you're doing is exactly what we're doing with ds2. I've been slowly weaning him for the last 6 weeks (he's now 6 months) on the advice of HV and GP. But the last 3 days he's eating huge amounts and just keeps wanting more. He's still downing his usual 8 or 9 oz of milk aswell.
He's off the centile charts for height and on the 99th centile for weight so wondering whether I'm giving him enough for his size.

I am a bit worried that I give my DD too much milk.

7am milk and breakfast

11am - solids (until 2 days ago I was offering milk too, sometimes she would drink it, other times not)

230pm - milk

5pm - solids. Bath and then milk

10pm - dream feed.

She is 8 months old, really want to drop the dream feed but am scared as she drinks all of it and wakes hungry

Pamelat, at 7 months my ds still had 5 feeds and one of them was in the night (he gave that one up at 8 months). Our routine was

7am - milk
8am - breakfast
11am - milk
12pm - lunch
3pm - milk
5pm - dinner
7.15pm - milk
night feed till 8 months - milk

If you have dropped a milk feed have you though about offering a mid-morning snack (10/10.30am maybe) instead and then push lunch to 12pm-ish? What time is the bedtime feed/bedtime?

If you want to stop the dreamfeed you could try dropping the amount you offer gradually over a couple of weeks e.g. offer an ounce less every few days. That way your lo would be more able to make up the lost calories during the day.

milk then food as milk is the main source of calories and nutrition for the first year.you can also start to offer a beaker of water with meals, but they tend not to drink much until nearer a year old. milk is more filling and don;t worry about replacing milk feeds with food so early in the weaning process.

forevared - can't compare properly because my dd has been between 25th and 50th since birth. Also, she's breastfed so have no idea how much milk she has! But like your ds2 she has certainly appeared more hungry than usual the last few days - growth spurt?

I give her the home-made equivalent of a jar for each meal: brekkie - fruit puree and porridge, lunch - veg puree, dinner - puree of veg, protein and carb (ie, cottage pie, etc). Is this the sort of amount you're giving your ds2? You might need to give more anyway if he is a bigger baby?

pamelat - another way to try to drop the dreamfeed is instead of dropping the amount you move the time forward by 15 mins every few nights.

oh and I forgot - dd usually has a yog or fromage frais after lunch or dinner. can't believe i forgot that, it's her favourite thing ever!

Thanks Julietbat, that's pretty much what we were giving. I've been making up pots of puree that, like you, are roughly the same amount as in a jar. Today he 2 of them for lunch after having downed 9oz just an hour before. At supper tonight he had another 1.5 pots and then another 9oz!

It must be a growth spurt but I was hoping he'd just reached the end of one when I had him weighed on Thursday! He's so big, he's nearly grown out of his 9-12 month clothes. DH says it's like trying to wrap a pig in cling film (kindly meant)!

ahh, bless him! they're all just such different sizes, aren't they? and there's not much you can do if he's hungry - the only thing i've been told is that bottle-fed babies can sometimes take all the food that's offered to them because they're used to taking all a bottle, whereas breastfed babies moderate their own milk intake so are more likely to let you know when they're full and stop eating. don't know if that's true but as long as you know he's def still hungry you'd better keep feeding him!

Well I bf him till 5 months old then gradually switched to formula. Don't know if the bfing helped with his self control because he will sometimes only take about 5oz (usually his 7am feed), just at the moment he's wolfing everything down and I'm having to make up 9oz bottles. HV has advised to switch to follow on milk, something to do with casein/whey content which should reduce feedings to 6 or 7oz

Sorry to hijack, m27!

No problem forevared! Thanks loads for the advice and suggestions and I've since swapped to breastfeeding before solids so DD definitely gets enough milk. As with all these new parenting challenges I (we) come up against, I've decided beyond that not to worry. My DD is doing brilliantly so what we've got going must be suiting her OK, Annabel Karmel routine be damned!