Weaning Questions

[Tillytots]

LOL another weaning question/s here.

Ok, James had been going 12 hours through the night without a feed up until a few weeks ago. He now has 2-3 bottles in the night again, about 11pm, 2am and 5-6am. He is so interested in food now too and will swipe things off your plate He weighs about 16lb now so he isnt a teeny weenie anymore.

Anyway, I have been offering James different foods over the last few weeks but have started to wean him properly now. I feed him his normal bottle at 5-6am then at 10am he has a bottle and some cereal. The rest of the day he just has milk at the moment. He gets so grumpy if I only offer him a couple of spoonfuls so I give him what he wants and he easily polishes off a small bowl of cereal or carrot, butternut squash, swede and sweet potato. He loves everything apart from baby rice

My questions:

1. How much should I be giving him? Do I just feed him how much he wants?

2. When should I introduce another meal? He has been having cereal with his morning bottle for about a week but he is still starving through the night. Can I just offer him some carrot with his teatime bottle.

3. Do babies drop feeds themselves or should I be offering less milk when I wean him. I dont want to make him a little porker!

Thankyou in advance

 

[Manda&Thomas]

hiya hun il help you the best i can
with offering more food try him with some at night i find feeding a dinner around 4/5pm is best as it means he isnt trying to sleep with a belly full of food
portion size id go with asmuch as you feel comfortable with really thomas has 3/4 a jar of food or 3 heaped tablespoon of food ive made, for brekfast he has about 2 heaped tablespoons of porridge, hes been fully weaning for 5 weeks now so you may not want to give asmuch as those sizes,
for dropping bottles thomas still hasnt hes still on 5/6 bottles a day
when i started giving him dinner he would drink less of the next bottle due to the food but thats only for a week he then drinks the same amount again same as with his morning bottle after brekkie he was drinking less but its since gone back up
xx

 

[Jen & Her Men]

Hiya hun,

From the sounds of it he is going through the famous 4 month growth spurt which can last for a couple of weeks. Its the most aggressive spurt by far and can trick us mummies into thinking that bubs needs more solids which they often dont at this point.

At four months I would say that he should be kept on one meal a day, maybe up the quantity of that and until the spurt is over just demand feed him his milk. I know its crappy that they dont sleep through but its sommat we all go through around 4 months.

The other thing is that i would give him his solids with his evening bottle so that he is fuller for longer in the evening so you may get a bit more kip...

If you are still finding after a week or so of this that he still is starving then introduce some lunch - pureed veggies like carrots and sweet potato. But with weaning from 4 months i would say the key is not to rush. I had to wean James from 12 weeks due to his size etc but i literally gave him some baby rice with his last bottle for 4 weeks before moving him on to anything else. this way their tummies accept the change gradually rather than loading their digestive system with all sorts of different things straight away that they may find hard to digest and need to get used to.

In terms of bottles, if you are giving him just one meal a day keep the milk the same. If you give him lunch as well then reduce the amount you give him with the lunch feed. Once he starts with brekkie then i would say you can cut a bottle out completely and replace with water.

But at the mo I would just swop the cereal morning feed for a cereal evening feed and see how you get on for a week and if still no better intro a lunch and drop the amount of milk he has at lunch.

Hope that helps!

 

[Tillytots]

thats brilliant thankyou

I forgot about the 4 month growth spurt!! he did have a few wingey weeks but he is happy in himself now, just bloody starving It may well be that then.

James absolutely adores puureed carrot, swede, sweet potato and butternut squash - as does Mummy Its so yummy!!

 

[Jen & Her Men]

mmm me too! Sweet potato is gorgeous. There is an ace recipe where you do pasta, and chunks of carrot, sweet pot and butternut squash in a tomato sauce and bake it in the oven. Its good for bubs too when hes a bit older and its totally delicious. AND its a slimming world recipe and is free on a green day! Bonus!

 

[Bee]

This is what Finlay has:

7ish - bottle
10/11 - bottle and banana porridge
1/2 - bottle
4/5/6 - bottle, veg of some sort (on turnip just now) and some porridge
8 - bottle
11 - bottle

He has 2 cubes (frozen ice cube tray size) of veg at dinner time and 2/3 milk powder scoop size of porridge in the morning

He's ok with this just now so not going to up his food yet but will introduce lunch soon I think