Weaning

[Kodit]

Hi,

My wife and I are looking to wean our 24 week old and she has read that we are better off starting the weaning process in the morning, rather than the evening, in case he has a bad reaction to it and I think in case he gets an upset stomach when we put him to bed if we try and do it in the evening. Does anyone know how long we should do this for until we start introducing feeds in the evening too? How did you wean you baby?

From a confused dad.

I started with the tinest ammount after a milk feed and then just went with DD. I used to give it her mid morning after a BF and then wold give her a BF afterwards.

Did his for a week or so and then increased slowly and built it up to twice a day - mid morning and mid afternoon.

4 weeks on she is having something 3 times a day but still give her a breastfeed first and offer her one afterwards so breast milk is still her main diet supplemented with food.

We've recently started weaning DS2 and are not remotely that specific! If he's awake when DS1 (almost 3) is eating, I just plonk a bit of whatever DS1 is having in front of him and see how he gets on with it, helping himself. DS2 normally has food 3 times a day as a result, and has from the start. Usually toast triangles in the morning, then steamed vegetables plus a bit of pasta or whatever at lunchtime, then maybe some rice cakes, bit of cheese perhaps, and cucumber sticks or similar for his tea.

Hi Kodit,

I followed Gina Ford's weaning guide. It gave a really helpful structure to follow that introduces foods at sensible times and gives a useful guide to quantities etc. Whether you are a fan of routine or not, it offers a helpful, easy to follow guide (plus lots of general tips and recipes!)

Overall, her structure is to start mid-morning with milk first (to take the edge off hunger) followed by puree and topped up by additional milk (to make sure they are full), like a pp has said. After about 1-2 weeks, you can follow the same process at breakfast and after another 1-2 weeks do the same at 'tea' time. Throughout this process you can reduce the amount of milk given to encourage your LO to eat more. This milk can then be offered when mixed in porridge, casseroles etc or offered as cheese, yoghurt and so on.

Just remember though that initially your LO will be having fruit/veg puree that does not offer many calories. When you start to reduce the milk, make sure you are offering plenty of calorie rich food, especially protein which sustains hunger!

HTH

Hello,

this probably sounds foolish, but my little boy is 13 weeks, he gorges his formula and always wants more than the recommended feed, he has grown from 6lbs 7ounces at birth to 14lbs already and we've only just managed to get him to 5 feeds a day of about 180ml x 4 + 210ml x 1 (night feed), the formula packaging says 4 months/14lbs 230ml x 5, should I go by his weight or by his age?

Secondly, has anyone fed their little one under 4 months some baby rice or similar?

peppar

The formula packaging is only a guide. Go by how hungry your baby is. If he is hungry, give him more milk.

At this age my LO was having the following:

7am 6-8oz
10.45am 6-8 oz
2.15pm 6-8oz
5.30pm 4oz
7pm 4-5 oz
10.30pm 6-8 oz

Sometimes he would wake in the night and have a feed, mostly if he had fed poorly during the day.

No baby, no matter how big/small/hungry needs weaning at 13 weeks.

The earliest you should wean is 17 weeks.