When to 'Up' meals?

[MrsMagooo]

Hello ladies,

I should know what I'm doing as I have a DD who's 2.6 but my brain has turned to mush lol!!

I started weaning my DS just under 2 weeks ago at just over 21 weeks, I realise this is under the 'guideline' age of 6 months but IMO he honestly did seem ready & he is loving his food.

At the moment he has breakfast (pear or apple mixed in with baby breakfast) & then lunch (so far have tried him on carrot, sweet potato, brocolli carrot & potato, apple & pear. (I make all the purees myself)

Anyway I digress - my question is when would it be ok to 'up' to 3 meals a day??

DS is enjoying his food, he eats very well & still has bottles (he also still wakes in the night to be fed hence we wondering when I can increase to 3 meals) but as I have started weaning before the guidelines I'm unsure as to when it would be ok to increase his meals.

Sorry for the waffle - any advice welcome

Kate, I admit I am a bit obsessed about getting food into them in the hope they will sleep! So I hope you are right that it is nothing to do with how much they eat once they have learned to sleep through.

I do find, though, that if they don't eat much we get a 5am wake-up rather than 7.30am the next day.

As for sleeping, both of mine initially slept worse once on solids. Some people think their children sleep better once on solids, some not, whether breastfeeding or not, whether blw or not. Personally I just think it's a cruel twist of fate.

neenztwinz, I'd second what others have said, that with twins you do what you need to do to keep sane!

That's true of singletons too, of course - no such thing as perfect parenting.

But that said, I think it can be useful to think about the ideal way to do something, as something to head towards, not necessarily to achieve.

What I mean specifically in this context is that I can see you making an assumption here that the ideal is a baby who is so satisfied with food that they sleep through. This is what we're all aiming for. Yes?

But I'm not sure that is ideal for babies - even though it's very nice for parents. I think it's much more likely that for some babies, it's ultimately healthier to have small frequent meals and to wake up and have a bit of milk in the night.

What I'm thinking is that the ideal for each baby is for them to have the right amount of food (not more, not less) at the right time (not when they're full, not when they're screaming with hunger) and of the right type (which might somethimes be milk and sometimes solids).

Now that's just not practical in real life - even if you know exactly what they need at every moment. But because I use that as my ideal rather than sleeping through, I've been happy to feed them at night well into their 2nd year, and have never seen that as a problem needing to be solved, iyswim.

Which is just as well, because (finally I'm answering your question!) for my older 2 at least, sleeping was never related to solids. They slept through reliably about a year after starting solids I think (BF).

My LO is 27 weeks and is BF at 7am, 10:30am, 2:30pm, 6:30pm and then FF at 11pm which has been the same for about 3 months, he is on the 75 percentile for weight. In the last 4 weeks he has woken up only once a night at 3amish, he did sleep thru the night once about 2 weeks ago but hasn't been repeated (he has had a horrible cough tho). We have been following BLW for 3 weeks.

Funnily enough I am talking on email to a friend who has no knowledge of this thread, she BF and has started weaning him on purees and said this
"Waking is getting better again, was really bad after introduction of solids. He was waking hourly in the evenings for breastmilk and hardly drinking any in the day"

Two things to say, neither particularly constructive!

Firstly, NO NEEENZ - don't go abandoning the purees! I need you to stand up to the scary BLWers and show that there is another way (and in fact, in the real world that i inhabit purees are the norm!).

Secondly, I love that grippa thingummy and can't beleive that my 3rd and probably last baby is 7 months and I've spotted it about 2 months to late.

And finally, to the OP, I think you ask a reasonable question. FWIW I'd start offering a third meal. I've not had a problem with constipation other than when I added too much baby rice to the pear with dd1. I tend to shovel in as much as they'll take in the hope that it'll help sleep. It generally doesn't. But don't you just love preparing gleaming icecubes of lovely mush and then spooning it into their wide open mouths. Love it!

You're dead right there, talking about scary BLW-ers and turning it into a fight is about as far from constructive as you can get.

This is a good discussion, why spoil it by trying to draw up battle lines? It's just different ideas, different ways of doing things.

tassisssss- that was particularly stirry - did you mean it to be?

Cant stay and watch unfortunately as have got work to do grr...

Neenz - thanks, I'm going to try bf again if there's hopefully a lo no. 2!

I offered more milk when I started BLW but she didn't drink any more, and she wasn't eating much at all to start with. There have been plenty of times when she has refused her last bottle because of teething and I was sure I'd be getting up to give her a bottle, but she never did. As I said, for only a couple of weeks when she was 5 months old she woke up at 5am for a bottle, and I just upped the bottles.

Personally I don't think that sleeping is related to food, but obviously babies will wake up if they're hungry, and my dd has never had a big appetite, so I don't know what it's like to have a really hungry baby.

We co-slept until she was 6 months old, so I didn't "make" her sleep through by letting her cry or anything, she did all the sleeping through herself. I'll probably have a baby that waked up every hour until he/she's 2 next time, lol!

But there is a train of thought that you are not helping them to sleep you are helping them to allow you to have an undisturbed night. That sounds provocative but then I am not sure calling BLW scary is, as you admit, particularly constructive either.

the grippa is fab tassisssss. I am a bit scared of this thread, aren't we losing focus here guys?
Surely the emphasis is try what you can, do what the baby wants to do, there is no timetable or right or wrong way. BLW and pureed beginnings are individual choice, not yours YOUR BABIES CHOICE!

Might kill thread have done every other I've been on!

Actually, I didn't say BLW was scary at all. I said there were some Scary BLWers around, which is an observation and my opinion. I was addressing that comment to Neenz who I've talked to on another thread and who i think talks a lot of sense.

I think people can wean how they like. I like purees. The thing is that on MN BLW appears to be the norm and in my part of the real world it certainly isn't. In fact i know NO-ONE (in RL) who doesn't start off with purees. I make this point (again) because I think non BLWers are frightened to admit it on MN.

I'll retreat now, but did want to give the OP my thoughts as someone with a LO a similar age who's doing this for the third time at the moment.

wasprice - it does look fab and i'll remember it if i have another but i'm pretty sure this little one is our last and she's just about mastered sitting in her highchair. As for your "it's our babies choice" you see that's just what I'm not sure of. I decide that my 5 year old's getting cheerios or weetabix for breakfast and not just toast and jam which he'd prefer, I decide what he has in his packed lunch (obviously with some consultation but it's limited) I decide to do purees...is it really my babies choice?!

Welliemum, I can see what you are saying and I'd call that baby-led sleeping . There is that theory but there is also my theory that night time is for sleeping and daytime is for eating. The DTs are thriving just fine without night feeds, I was always happy to feed them in the night until it got ridiculous at Christmas (I was up 5/6 times each night!). There was a massive thread about CC recently which was very informative and I am now very content in my use of sleep-training methods and the DTs are too (everyone gets a good night's sleep). I respect your opinion but IMO teaching/encouraging babies to sleep through the night is good for all concerned.

FWIW I thought Tassisss' post was funny . We are all far too mature and sensible to start having a slanging match, aren't we

I agree that puree feeding is the norm (in western societies anyway), but isn't that a bit of a red herring really? (well blended obviously)

It hasn't always been the norm, may not always be the norm in future, and the norm doesn't always correlate with what's best for an individual baby.

Pureeing isn't a sort of objective standard to measure everything else to - it's just what happens to be fashionable right now.

I have a feeling that BLW is the direction of the future because it aligns well with worries people have at the moment regarding obesity and child health. Any method of self-regulating food intake is going to generate interest in this sort of climate.

After BLW, some other idea may come along, and who knows what that might be?

It's all fluid, we should be open to all ideas within reason, not just the popular ones.

welliemum, i think you're right that it may well get more and more popular. My point is that in the artificial world of MN it appears to be the norm now so when a puree using mummy appears with a question, all the BLWers answer (which is fine of course and they're all lovely) but that makes the puree mummy feel like she's doing it all wrong. WHICH IS WHY i post from time to time saying THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD! and that's why I liked Neenz posts advocating purees.

LOL at baby-led sleeping.

But it's not black-and-white, is it, this sleeping through thing.

My children aren't up playing with their dollies at night - they're in bed, sleeping. They wake up and feed for, I don't know, 15 minutes and then go back to sleep - and so do I.

They're in fact very good sleepers from my point of view.

In the same way, I'm a good sleeper, have never had insomnia, but sometimes I wake and feel a bit thirsty, have a drink of water and go back to sleep.

To me that's not a sleep problem, that's just me responding to a physiological need, and I see night feeds in exactly the same way, ie it's not a problem so it doesn't need help.

A baby sitting up half the night unable to settle is a different thing entirely of course.

Tassisss, i see what you mean. I (mostly) cook the food in this house, so decide how they eat, DH included! I did the whole AK thing with DS. Put off and put off starting solids with DD, but the day she grabbed my pizza off me at the table I knew she was ready to eat! So looking at blw, I thought lets give that a go. Not really for her, she just got frustrated even though her ability to grasp any passing food was very good!
She's 9 months just, and we skipped the first tastes and went straight to casseroles and lentil or pasta dishes. Loves her food! She has milk twice a day (250 mls ish each time), but I cook a large amount of dishes using formula milk.
DS great example of a naturally healthy eater (and I may eat my words when he gets older), but they are doing healthy eating at school and every day on the way home we've picked a different vegetable or fruit to have for lunch or tea. So as you say you do have a huge influence, but I let him influence me a bit to. For example I have a pomegrante and a jerusalem artichoke in the fridge that I am not sure what to do with!!

Welliemum I think you're right sleeping and food don't neccessarily have any correlation. My DH is a brilliant sleeper, he's anytime, anyplace, anywhere (was that a drink?) and so are my DC. I never was, and still can survive on very little sleep!

Also I was told as a new mum sleep breeds sleep. So the more they learn to settle themselves or get into a routine of sleeping, the better they are. I know by watching my mother with my DC that she doesn't recognise the signs of sleep in them and doesn't view it as important. The "let them go to bed when they're ready" comments. Makes me realise I obviously had her wrapped around my finger as a child! She tells me that when we were small, she had my father install a bolt on their bedroom door on the inside, so that she could sleep while we played on the floor without wondering around the house.

See I did it I killed it! Bet when I'm up in the morning you're all at it again! Broccoli spears thrust against sloppy apple ice cubes!

I don't know if it has anything to do with my dd sleeping through so young and doing (give or take half an hour) 7pm-7am every night, but I was obsessed with putting dd into her cot as soon as she yawned, day or night (Baby Whisperer) and always had her in bed early, earlier than I thought she'd sleep, and I am a real routine person (give or take an hour here or there, though). I don't know if that has anything to do with it though, because she is vey regular and I noticed from she was a few weeks old that she would wake at exactly the same time for a feed, and she is also a very regular, easy-going baby who doesn't cry much (unless you're washing her face). And I'm sure other parents do exactly the same and their baby doesn't sleep though. Thankfully we never had to do cc as we co-slept until she was 6 months and she settles straight away with her dummy, which is only for bed.

tassissss - my baby chose, she refused to be spoon-fed! I'm glad she did now

lol wasprice!! No, see, you haven't!

My cousins are twins. They are now 6 but their mum did BLW weaning with them. She breastfed exclusively til 4 months and then mix fed them. I just text her and she said they started waking in the night at about 5.5 months and stopped at about 6.5 months.

DS did not eat anything until he was 8 months old. He fed a lot during the day but he didn't wake in the night at all.

Sorry, waspricey, I just left for 30mins to watch The Hills!

I definitely think being able to settle themselves to sleep is a big factor in how well they sleep at night.