Talk me through your "food day" with your 6mo

[VerityClinch]

I am finding it a real struggle to fit everything into the day now that we are weaning. We are BLW mainly, but I am interested in views from everyone, not just the BLW-ers.

DD wakes around 6:30am for a milk feed, then goes back to sleep until around 8am.

We do a "food feed" at about 9am.

Then a milk feed at 10:30am

Then lunch around 1pm, a "food feed", with water, but she doesn't drink much, say 40ml

Then a milk feed at 2:30pm

Then tea about 4:30 - 5pm, depending on whether we have been out in the afternoon

Bathtime is 6pm and she has another milk feed at 6:30pm, and is then down for the night until 6:30am the next morning.

However, factor three naps (at least one of which is usually in the buggy while we are out and about) into the above and I feel like I am constantly either preparing, feeding or cleaning up after feeding. I am struggling to get out of the house - and the house is a tip with bowls, spoons, bibs, wipes everywhere!

The other thing is, since we are supposed to offer food when they are not ravenously hungry or tired, I find she needs a nap after her food feeds, so I am lying her down with a full tummy and that can't be good for her digestion, can it?

I'm sure it's not SUPPOSED to be like this - how much milk does she need now? She hasn't dropped a milk feed, but the girl really doesn't have an off switch, so she will call for her bottle and drain it, however much is in it.

Since she's not drinking much water, I'm reluctant to cut her milk down as I worry about her getting dehydrated/constipated.

Any ideas about anything?

My 7 month old charge does the following at the mo:

7/8am wakes up, has 7-8oz milk

9am breakfast of oatmeal/yoghurt and fruit, water to drink

1030am 4-6oz milk

11-1230/1 naps

1ish lunch of mixed veg and lentil mash (or something equally gross looking but actually quite scrumptious tasting), followed by fruit chunks to lob all over the kitchen, 2-3oz milk to drink

230pm 4-6oz milk

330-5ish nap

530pm dinner of something carby, followed by something fruity - at the moment she LOVES oatmeal and will happily chow down on that with half a banana mashed into it

7pm bathtime

730pm 6-8oz milk before bed at 8pm

Her naps are a bit random timewise but she sleeps all night and so we are following her lead and enjoying a later start in the morning

Well DS is 7 months in a couple of days and still only has 1 'meal' a day - he's still such a milk monster with very little interest in solids so whilst I have started BLW, there's not much eating going on at the moment! Anyway, our day is roughly as follows:

7am wake / milk
9am nap
10am wake / milk
11:30 - lunch (finger food veg/fruit/rice cakes etc)
12pm - nap
1pm wake / milk
3pm - nap
4pm wake/milk
6:45pm - milk / bed
10:30pm dreamfeed

As soon as he starts showing a bit more interest in solid I'll introduce another meal (tea 5pm the breakfast 8am)

LCN

Our routine (ish):
7am wake and b/f
8am food breakfast
9am morning nap (1-2hrs)
11:30 b/f
12 food lunch
1pm aft nap (1-2hrs)
3pm play
5-6pm b/f
6:30 food dinner
7pm bath and bedtime b/f
11pm b/f if she wakes for it (2-3 x per wk)
3pm b/f if she wakes for it (rare now)

Our tips:
(i) b/f within 30 mins of solid meal so whole day doesn't revolve around feeding.

(ii) Cut selection of fruit and veg every morn (5mins) and use throughout day (at start of meals while preparing rest, or when waiting for order in cafe/restaurant)

(iii) DD always eats same as us: pasta twists, risotto, steamed veg sticks and mash are real winners for eve dinner. DD has a little fish, chicken but not overly interested.

(iv) If spoon-feeding runny food, offer few pieces of fruit as well to stick with BLW concept of independent eating. Also wait for baby's cue for next spoonful.

Good luck!

Soz, cutlery comment = gin bringing out full sarcasm after reading too many books of the baby fascist variety.

If any consolation, only reason DD has been spectacularly productive in the nappy dept yesterday was a tooth! Hopefully this is the reason for a shit week with almost no sleep. Abandoned dream feed last night as figured she'd get me up anyway; did for dummy replacement but not for food till half 6. Almost 8 hours sleep! I feel like I'm on drugs!

God - another 19 teeth to go....do Tesco have a limit on the number of cases of Value Gin they'll deliver to a given address at any one time...?

Hi - this is my routine which I started when my daughter was 7 months (she is now nearly 10 months).

7.30am 200 ml milk

8.30am mashed banana and weetabix (or something similar) plus a bit of toast

9.30am 1 hour nap (max)

12.30pm Lunch - mashed up meat and veg combo (e.g. spag bol or chicken stew) and yoghurt

1pm - 2 hour nap

2.30pm 200 ml milk

5.15pm Dinner - something else mashed up (normally "vegetarian" e.g. spinach and cheese pasta sauce) and fruit

6.30pm 200 ml milk

6.45pm Bed

BTW - I really struggled with the water thing and ended up spoon feeding my daughter it as she refused to drink it out of a cup. However in the end I just repeatedly sat in front of her pretending to drink out of her cup and let her fiddle about with it until she would finally drink from it. Spent a bloody fortune on different spouted lidded cups and funny old thing she is now very happy to drink out of the cheapest crappy Asda one I bought rather than the complex ones with different valves and handles blah blah. Pissing Tommee Tippee must be laughing his socks off.......

Still no poo, despite prune juice, not that she drank much. Poor little mini is v uncomfy, lots of straining going on and nothing to show for it.

Prune and pear surprise for breakfast tomorrow...

Thanks everyone for posting your routines/schedules. Looks like I am not alone and life at the 6/7 month stage does really revolve around food and feeding...

DD is eating most food at her 5pm meal, so I think maybe I need to cut back on how much she eats then (tricky as she seems to get more and more interested in food as the day progresses), or bring that mealtime forwards because she's asleep for the night by 6:30pm usually and I think maybe she's having trouble digesting all that food as it sits in her belly overnight.

Re the poo, my DS goes like a trooper if I give him gripe water... Fresh lemon juice in their water too usually gets them going.
so you could try that.
I am just about to start offering first food tastes at 20 wks, reading through the booklet the HV gave me and it is a minefield, I have absolutely no idea when solids replace milk, when to start 3 meals, when to stop milk etc etc so am going to read all of these posts again and see if i can glean some sense.
My mum has the right idea she goes 'oh i just gave you mashed potatoes and gravy at 12 wks and you did alright'

Heather, in a nutshell milk should be your DS's main source of nutrition til he's one, he should drink around 18oz+ a day (some babies drink this, others wolf down 45oz!!!!). Start with a couple of spoonfuls at one mealtime after he's had most of a milk feed, and once he's eating a few spoonfuls at one meal you can add another meal. All bubbas are different and he might progress quickly onto 3 meals, or he might be a one mealer til he's quite a bit older. 20 weeks is still fairly young (I won't go into the whole "wait til 6 months" thing as it just seems to be a flashpoint on MN!) But a caveat for you, go easy on the foods you offer for the next few weeks, very simple purees to start with. Be led by his interest and ability to eat, and don't stress if he loses interest or doesn't eat much. He is not meant to get his main nutrition from solids yet, so enjoy the mess and the funny faces and let him grow and explore different tastes and textures at his own pace.

Thanks for that, a nice simple explanation! I wasn't planning to introduce 'meals' as such until 6 months but was just getting organised now by doing the reading up and giving him little tastes of things like pureed carrot just to see if he liked it.
He is so desperate to eat whatever I have and got hold of a banana I was eating yesterday and lets just say we both needed a bath and change of clothes by the time he was done.
I like the idea of just letting him taste things and make a mess before I have to worry about getting enough of it into him for nutritional purposes.

Heather, I think you have exactly the right idea there. You might want to have a look at Gill Rapley's book Baby Led Weaning.

I am totally not against purees etc (god knows I never stick to my principles, viz my pathetic attempts at breastfeeding ) but if you have a laid back, not-that-bothered-about-getting-food-down-em mindset, it might work really well for you.

PS, for those of you following my DD's intestinal workings with interest (anyone? anyone?) the prune and pear surprise has definitely got things moving.

I don't think we're out of the woods yet, judging by the colour and texture, but we're on the way. (TMI? Really?)

Ah i'm glad, i was actually thinking about it as i was driving home today, wondering if the explosion had come yet! TMI does not apply once you have a baby!!
Will get that book, thanks.

Been weaning dd (who was 10 weeks prem and still very small though just under 25th centile - corrected). She weighs 5.73kg.
Our routine is as follows:
Btw 4-5am bf
Sleep
8am bf and breakfast (readybrek, porridge or weetabix)
10am sleep
13:00 bf and lunch (fruit puree usually)
15:00 sleep
17:00 bf and dinner (usually a pudding type thing eg. rice pudding)
18:00 bath
18:45 - 19:00 bedtime
midnight-1am ish dream feed

Was told avocado is a good high cal food (for those with weeny babes)