Hi flower,
I exclusively breastfeed my DD who is now 8.5 months old (eeek - how did that happen?
).
Our routine now is:-
7.30-8am
breastfeed (on waking, straight after nappy change) in bed
9am (about an hour after breastfeed or thereabouts) porridge and homemade fruit puree, banana, toast and butter/cream cheese/mashed banana. Water to drink
Nothing til 12.30pm then lunch. This is currently sandwiches (cream cheese, cheese, ham), eggy bread (french toast), houmous/avocado/cream cheese and breadsticks or ricecakes, baked potato and filling etc. I normally like to give a cold meal here (not pre-cooked from freezer, not sure why!). Then dessert of org. yoghurt, fruit puree, fresh fruit (blueberries, pear, papaya etc)
3pm
breastfeed
5.15pm Dinner - cauliflower cheese, pasta and homemade tomato sauce, fishcakes, chicken casserole, bolognaise, stovies, macaroni cheese, plaice/sole and mushed veg - all homemade. Sometimes some organix carrot sticks/ricecakes as finger food. Rice pudding (homemade), fruit puree, fresh fruit, org. yoghurt etc as pudding.
6.45pm
breastfeed.
Until about 7.5 months she took a mid morning (11amish) breastfeed too, but I stopped offering this recently and she stopped asking for it which has freed me up, no end! Its great only doing 3 feeds a day! About once a week she might ask for this feed, but not very often. Occassionally I accidentally miss her afternoon breastfeed (I call this her snack feed as she's on for such a short amount of time, its more like a quick drink than a proper breastfeed) and I notice that she'll cleverly take more before bed but I am trying to keep this one at the moment to ensure she gets plenty of milk.
I am going back to work
when she's a year old and at about 11 months, I'll probably introduce a bottle of EBM as her afternoon feed just to get her used to this. I expect her to drop this afternoon feed about as she turns one, but I don't want to leave no milk with my childcare provider - so I'll probably leave a bottle of EBM and ask her to give it to her if she's hungry. I think I will continue to feed beyond one year (early morning and evening feeds) if its still going as well as it is now as I think it would be a VERY BAD IDEA for me to give up feeding and go back to work (which I am dreading) at the same time as I think my hormones will go sky-high when I stop producing milk anyway so want to ease the transition a bit and will keep the first thing in the morning and evening breastfeed until 16-18 months I think (unless she self-weans earlier).
Have you tried giving your baby his/her tea at 5-6pm and putting him/her to bed earlier to see if he'll sleep longer? I agree with KJ that that's very late for an evening meal for a tiny tum - also you must want your evening back!? Bizarrely (my daughter was much younger at this point admittedly), my daughter slept through the night - 12+ hours when put down to sleep at 7pm, but when woke for her dreamfeed, she'd be up at 3am again - weird?! We quickly dropped the dreamfeed! I think (although I may be wrong), we should be aiming for 12+ hours sleep overnight (even if its broken for feeds etc). My daughter does sleep though (sorry), she was always a good sleeper - she slept through the night 12 hours from 6 weeks to 4 months. She then woke once or twice until 7 months, by then we were on three meals a day - so we introduced puddings (a second course at breakfast, lunch and tea) and since then she's slept through for about 13 hours.
This is just my experiences - hope they are helpful. Please PM me with any questions. Let us know how you are getting on.
Valentine Xxx
P.S. I'll move this post to Feeding and Nutrition for you, no worries.