DD nearly 8 months - how much FF should she be having?

[DawnAS]

My DD (first baby) is nearly 8 months old. I've always struggled to feed her (has been FF since birth) as she just never seems to be hungry.

We started weaning at 6 months and she always has some porridge for breakfast, followed by a bottle. For lunch she has a small savoury dish (about 3/4 of a stage one jar sized portion - sometimes jar, sometimes homemade) plus another 3/4 size of a sweet jar. Followed by another bottle.

In the afternoon, she has the same again and then another bottle before bed.

In between, she has the odd breadstick with philly or organix rice cakes.

My concern is that although she is having 4 x 240ml bottles offered to her, she will normally only drink a total of 600ml (sometimes a little less).

I am constantly worrying that she is not having enough food/milk through the day. She refuses to drink water or any sort of juice so she really is only drinking milk.

So is she having sufficient, bearing in mind that it can be more or less on a daily basis, depending on how tired she is and what mood she's in.

Also, if I give her finger foods, she sometimes gags and brings her milk or food back up and then I worry that she's not having enough again...

Any suggestions? Other than me calming down and relaxing - which seems to be easier said than done. Luckily it doesn't seem to be effecting her that much as she just laughs at me!

Thank you in advance...

I think the department of health recommends between 500-800ml of formula so if she is getting 600ml I think she will be fine.
I am in a similar position but figure if dd was hungry/needed more milk she would drink it. you are offering more and I think that is the main thing.

london, thank you for your response. She's never been particularly bothered about food and we've regularly thrown milk away.

She's very small built and when we last had her weighed (a long time ago ) she had dropped on the centiles, but she had had undiagnosed oral thrush for 12 weeks (despite my constant trips to the GP they insisted it was "residue milk") which caused havoc with her feeding once her mouth was finally clear!.

But I figure that as she is developing well, is happy and healthy, that she will eat if she's hungry, as you say.

Thank you again.

DS started to like food more than bottles when I weaned him so have been using SMA progress (the 6 month plus one)- he is 7mo for the last few weeks. He has 3 6oz bottles each day now. The back of the tin recommends between 500 + 600 mls per day, so he gets enough, and it puts my mind at ease, as he has dropped a few centiles a few month ago and I am always worried he wont get enough!!

Bustle, I'm in the same situation, hence my panicking. My DD dropped from just above the 25th centile to just above the second, due to oral thrush that went untreated for 12 weeks! Apparently I'm just a Mum so when I told them something wasn't right, I was just fussing and it was only residual milk - yeah right!!

Isn't it awful that they make you feel so bad and worry about your baby's weight?!!

Sorry Bustle, I've totally just repeated my previous post...

you could make the rest up with yoghurt's Petits filous come in small tubs so a few of these a day will be more than enough to boost calcium intake the rest sounds perfectly fine

portion size for a 1 yr old would be 1 tablespoon of each portion so normally 3 tbsp of food so taking that into account she is doing really well if you keep your mind on the portion size actually being quite small you realise your panicking over nothing best not to get anxious about food she is eating great

i found the more active my ds got the more he was losing weight but it all stabled out just after a, yr old

Hi Bubblagirl,

Thank you so much, I wasn't aware of the portion size for a 1 year old - so she is doing well then!!

I think that's the problem, the portion size for every child is different I guess and when you look at the stage 1 jars, you just assume they should be eating the whole lot in one go!

Gosh, this parenting thing is hard... But I still love it!! Just one smile from my baby girl is worth a whole day of crappy stuff from work etc!!

xxx

PS: Unfortunately though, I tried the Petit Filous and she doesn't like them . In fact, she's not a fan of anything fruity - or cold unless it's finger food.

lol there's lots of foods you can get the extra calcium from but she sounds like she's doing well

my ds went through growth spurt and could eat more than me at one point then his appetite decreased and was hardly eating anything i was so anxious and someone informed me of the portion size and ive used this and still do his 4.9 now and has 4 tbsp of each portion i know his eating well he eats anything and everything and has no anxiety around food

any new foods i always tried at lunch time so didnt go to bed with belly ache once i knew he was fine on them i was doing them for dinner but each child is different some will eat whole jars some few mouthfuls

here

give you peace of mind

Thanks so much Bubblagirl, that's really put my mind at rest!

xx

PS: Good tip about trying new foods at lunchtime instead of dinner time...

my mum forewarned me of that one as apparently i would get really bad belly ache and keep her up all night and i am a twin and she had another young child so she learnt the hard way lol but was able to pre warn me lol

so i took on her tip and glad i did as a few certain new foods did give him belly ache but was able to ride it out way before bed lol