breast feeding at 7 months advice please!

[flower]

Just wondering how long those of you who breast feed are planning on doing? My boy is seven months now, and i still breast feed him throughout the day, and throughout the nigh! He is nowhere near sleeping through yet unfortuantely.

There is so much info around on bottle feeding and starting solids, but cant find so much info on bfeeding and solids. Our routine is something like this:
porridge and fruit for breakfast, followed by Bfeed.
1pm another breatfeed
3pm some vegetables, followed by breast feed
5-7pm he normally has another breast feed at some point
8pm dinner (fruit or veg)
9pm last breast feed before bed
10pm-7am he normally wakes for about 2 feeds.

I would love to continue breast feeding until he is around 1 year. How long are the rest of you planning on bfeeding? How do you manage to mix it with solids?

Thanks for the advice! x

 

[flower]

eek sorry! meant to post this in feeding and nutrition.... obviously havent had enough sleep!

 

[KJ]

Hi Flower,

I'm in a very similar situation to you. Ash is nearly 7 months. I got to 6 months exclusively breastfeeding.

We then started on solids and I have been dropping breastfeeds aswell.

I'm now in a place in which I feel comfortable. I breaatfeed first thing in the morning and last thing at night and he has formula feeds and solids throughout the day. Sometimes he wakes in the night and I need to breastfeed, but not all the time.

Our typical day:

8am - breastfeed
8.30am - breakfast, baby rice with fruit.
12noon - lunch, vegetables followed by bottle of formula
3.30pm - large bottle of formula
5pm - tea, vegetables/fruit
6.30pm - breastfeed
7pm - bed

I offer him water from a cup as often as I can throughout the day aswell.

Just wondering whether your LO's last solid feed is quite late. He might be waking with a bit of tummy upset? No expert, but just an idea. Most other babies I know on solids have their last meal around 5-6pm.

I think I'll carry on some breastfeeds if I can till he's around a year old. I might switch down to just one breastfeed a day, or I might stay on two. It's useful to still be breastfeeding becasue it saves so much hassle if he does wake in the night, I can just pop him on!

K.xx

 

[valentine]

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.

 

[Xena]

Alex is 8 months old and I exclusively breastfeed.....literally EXCLUSIVELY breastfeed. He refuses all other food.

I've got the hv coming on Monday because I rang her in desperation as I've tried and tried to get him to accept food and he just won't.

He's growing really well on the breastmilk though so that's something lol.

 

[flower]

Thank you ladies for all the good advice! I find this whole food thing very confusing.... especially when the breast feeding has been so easy. I feel that suddenly everything is much harder to organise and its hard to get the timing right.
I think you are all right about his evening feed being too late. The reason he goes to bed at 9 is because we live in spain, everything just runs later here, and it would be very hard to get him in to bed earlier. But I might try putting him down at 8 instead, and moving his last feed to 6.30 ish. He has been a terrible sleeper from the start poor thing. we have never had a night when he has woken up less than 3 times. But i guess its my fault for always picking him up, always breast feeding him throughout the night etc. I just find it impossible to let him cry.
KJ- did you find it hard to get your baby started on formula? I have tried for a while to get him to take a bottle, just to start preparing for when im back to work, but no sucess so far. He used to be fine with taking an occasional bottle when he was smaller (two or three months)
Valentine- Sound like you prepare some wonderful baby meals! Where do you get all your recipe ideas from? I prepare all of his food myself, but sometimes really struggle to come up with new ideas, and find myself repeating the same foods too often..
Xena- you must be exhausted! I had quite a hard time getting my boy started on solids because all he wanted was breast milk. he didnt take to baby rice or any kind of cereals. eventually it was apple cinnamon puree that worked for him. then gradually he started accepting other things. Still, if he is gaining weight, you must be doing just fine!

Well done everyone on the breast feeding! It can be so hard in the beginning but really worth it!

x

 

[-Kelly-]

I plan to breast feed him for at least a year, and maybe go up to 2 if it all goes well. I don't have any experience of mixing with solids yet though

 

[KJ]

Hi Flower,

to answer your question, yes! I did find it very difficult to get Ash to take a bottle!

Same as you, he had taken one on and off when he was younger but when I tried proper full formula bottles, he screamed and refused them for weeks! And even when he did take it it was after 10 mins of full on screaming, and even then he didn't take more than 3oz.

We persevered, tried every formula known to man! Finally settled on Hipp organic follow on. Also tried different bottles and teats. I had thought that becasue he was 6 months he would need 6mth teats, But on the advice of some of the ladies here, I went back to 3month teats (apparently breastfed babies are used to working for their milk and the 6mth teats were too fast for him). I also changed from TT closer to nature bottles, back to Avent ones again. And bingo! He took his milk!!

Unfortunately it's just trial and error, and keep persevering. The first feed I dropped was the midday one. I made sure if he screamed and refused, I didn't offer the breast so he went hungry. It sounds cruel, but if they scream and refuse the bottle and then get breast anyway, they know that's what happens and they're less likely to take the bottle.

Let me know how you get on.

K.xxx

 

[valentine]

Valentine- Sound like you prepare some wonderful baby meals! Where do you get all your recipe ideas from? I prepare all of his food myself, but sometimes really struggle to come up with new ideas, and find myself repeating the same foods too often..

I don't really - honest! I just had a couple of afternoons cooking last month and we're still plowing through it all!

Chicken casserole and bolognaise recipes are from this book by Jools Oliver
Cauliflower cheese (sometimes I put in broccolli and brussel sprouts too = v. stinky bum though!) - is just steamed cauliflower in a cheese sauce made with breast or cows milk (or mixture of both)
Macaroni cheese - as above with macaroni pasta (remember to tell OH when you use breast milk, I've found my OH tasting things re. temperature and I'm like - eeek that's got breast milk in it and he's like eeewwwwww...)
Fishcakes are just smoked haddock cooked in the oven with some butter wrapped in foil, flaked and added to mashed potato (mashed with un/s butter and whole cows milk), spring onions chopped, parsley, grated cheese - shaped into patties, dipped into plain flour and wholemeal breadcrumbs and fried in a little bit of olive oil
Stovies is a Scottish dish, people make it different but I fry an onion, add chopped/cubed Lorne (sliced) sausage from the butcher (some people use meat from your Sunday roast or normal sausages chopped up), add lots of chopped up potatoes and add water to cover then cook for ages until all mushy
Homemade pasta sauce is just skinned normal or plum tomatoes (skin by scoring them, add them to boiling water and then skin), add to pan with chopped onion garlic and any of next list - mushrooms, sweet potato, basil leaves, peppers, roast peppers, chilli, parsley, small broccolli florets, courgette etc etc - add a bay leaf and simmer down and cook for 45 mins, take out bay leaf and add to some cooked baby wholemeal pasta. Serve with tiny cubes of mozzarella cheese.
Plaice/sole with veg - I just get a bit of white fish from the fish van, then cook it in the oven for 10 mins wrapped up in foil with butter and a squeeze of lemon, then flake into veg bases from the freezer. Veg bases I have are butternut squash and orange; beetroot, tomato and spinach; pea and spinach; potato and carrot etc etc. These are also good if I'm having fish or chicken, I can use these veg bases and flake a bit of my meal (salmon, chopped cooked chicken, tuna etc) into them - voila, one meal for DD!

That's what I've got in the freezer at the moment - one full drawer . I find it good fun cooking for DD.

Re. taking a bottle, DD didn't take one until 4-5 months, and then would only take the Adiri Breastbottle Nurser for six weeks or so (always with EBM, not used formula). All of a sudden she just took to a bottle (a cheapie TT bottle) and now is no problem at all - I think its about perseverance, but I know how hard it is.

I hope that helps - sorry I waffled on.

Valentine Xxx

 

[maybebaby]

Hi flower, sounds like you're doing really well. I breastfed ds until just before his birthday, although we were only having one feed a day by the end. I was still feeding him at night until he was 9 months, when a HV told me he didn't need milk at night any more & was just trying it on - so I stopped & he was fine with that (still didn't sleep through but did sleep better).

I did baby led weaning so ds has always eaten the same as us. We always put ds to bed pretty late - even now he goes in the bath at 7:45. Daddy didn't used to finish work until 6 so if ds went to bed any earlier Daddy wouldn't get to see him much.

My main advice is go with your instincts. If it feels right & is working then you're doing great. Introducing solids (I hate the word weaning!) can seem really complicated but try to relax about it. It won't seem like 2 minutes & you'll be dishing up fish fingers & potato smiley faces to a toddler!

 

[flower]

Thanks again for all the tips everyone.

KJ, youre right, I think I just need to persevere with the whole bottle thing. trouble is, I start working a bit next month so I think he will have to accept a bottle by then. Not sure what I will do otherwise! And it really is so hard to let him cry......Im such a softie and always give in and end up putting him back on the boob! so your right, I guess he will never take a bottle if he know he will get boob if cries a bit!
Valentine, thanks for the food tips! sounds delicious. reading those recipes has made me hungry! Did you find that you had to introduce each ingredient separately? or was it okay just to give a new meal with a few new things in it? My poor baby, makes his carrot and sweet potatoe lunch sound dead boring! I better get in the kitchen and cook up some more exciting meals!
Maybebaby, I would love to try babyled weaning.... but im so scared of him choking on something! i might try giving him some bits and pieces now along with his lunch and see how he deals with it. Well done for Bfeeding for a year! I really hope we get that far aswell.

I think i really need to establish more of a routine for his meals aswell. Everyday he seems to eat at a different time and its probably confusing for him. Time to get my act together and be a bit more organised I think!
Right.... Im going to cook up some meals then.
Thanks again everyone!
x

 

[maybebaby]

The BLW isn't right for everyone but I'm pretty relaxed so it worked very well for us! Austin didn't really choke so much as gag a bit to begin with but a quick pat on the back sorts it out and they don't do it very much. Try giving him a bit of bread or a rice cake & see how he copes. Then I found soft fruits & veg are good - melon, banana, cucumber etc. As you get braver you can try giving him pear, cheese & pasta!

I'm completely with you on leaving them to cry, I still find it hard now & if he wakes in the night I still go to him. I did start to do a bit of controlled crying when he got to 1 but even then only leave him for a max 5 mins before I go in. The way I see it, babies cry for a reason and even if that reason is only 'I'm lonely' or I want a cuddle' it's my job as mummy to respond to that cry.

Good luck with the breastfeeding, you've done great so far & I'm sure you'll be able to achieve your goals