My goodness weaning is like trying trying to navigate the biggest minefield ever!!!!

So my question is this, at the moment we having all of our milk feeds before our meals so she takes all or most of her milk before filling up on solids. After six months when weaning really kicks in should I be swapping it round at lunchtime so she has her solids and finishes with her milk?

I would of thought if she always had her milk and then her solids she would never drop this feed, or do you increase the amount they have a breakfast time ie including toast or fruit with cereal or egg for example?

Or do you just gradually reduce the amount they have yourself until they have dropped it? Milk feeding has become such a focus in our house that I am nervous about dropping too much.

I dont know....someone should really write a step-by-step guide for neurotic mummies! It could be titled 'This is what you do Joanna!!'

xx

As you know we're going to do BLW so not entirely sure if it's the same with purees but I would personally stick to milk before a meal (perhaps leave a bit of a longer gap though so she's a little more hungry at her mealtimes). Milk is far more calorific and should be where they get their main nutrition from until about 1 year old. She will naturally start to drop her milk feeds and eat more solids as she learns that they can fill her up - when they're little it's more just like playtime/exploring to them as they don't know they can eat to get rid of hunger.

I'm really looking forward to starting weaning next week but am also nervous!

Love NN and Olyvia xxx

We are doing meals followed by milk. But not because I want to fill him up with solids but because for some unknown reason he stopped taking his milk when we did milk first then food. At the moment our eating schedule goes:

6am: Porridge & boob/bottle
9am: boob/bottle
12pm: Lunch & boob/bottle
3pm: bottle/boob
5pm - Dinner
6.30pm - boob/bottle
10.30pm - boob/bottle

He's taking full 7oz feeds at each milk feed, or about 20 minutes boob.

Cameron is also currently having quite large portions at each meal. For example 3/4oz of porridge for breakfast. 2/3oz veg puree and 2/3oz fruit puree puddng for lunch and the same again for tea. Last time I went to the HV I went to discuss the fact that Cam had suddenly stopped taking his milk and was only taking about half and she said it was probably about time to cut down anyway and not to worry. But i've read in lots of places that milk should be their main source of nutrition until at least 6 months so I haven't dropped any yet. But now he's started draining all of his bottles again I have no idea how i'm going to reduce his intake without upsetting him at any point!!

To conclude Joanna - I have no flipping idea! lol! xx

Hi before i start i want to say by no means do i know if this is the right way but its what worked for us.

ok lizzie was having just milk at 7,11, 2,5,8 and dream feed at 10. all bottles were 7oz and with dream feed she would take what she wanted normally abbout 4/5oz

ok so we started with lunch, so she had normal bottle at 7am then i would give her ha;lf her bottle, small amount of pouree and then rest of bottle. then rest of day she would continue with normal bottles.
as her puree intake increased she wouldnt takle 2nd half of bottle, only a small sip to clear her mouth of food! so she was then having 7am bottle and we got lunch put back to 11:30 and continued with all other milk feeds. finally she would ponly take 2oz of milk so i thought "why am i bothering" and stopped the milk and gave her small amount of fruit pouree after veg puree and some cooled boiled water.
we done same with dinner, introduced puree half way through bottle and as puree amount increased she dropped the milk feed.
I did at this point increase the other bottles to 8oz. so she was having:

7am-8oz bottle
11:30 lunch (veg puree folled by fruit puree)

2pm bottle
5pm dinner same as lunch
8pm bottle
10pm still having small dream feed

now she is almost 6 months i have started giving her a small bit of soya yogurt after have morning bottle. the reason i give it after her bottle is because she is now only having 3 bottles of 8oz and its important she still has the milk. it has helped us move times around to better times tho. so now her rotuine for feeding is this:

7:30am 8oz bottle and soya yogurt
12:30 lunch (still veg and fruit puree with cooled boiled water to drink)
3:30 8oz bottle
5:30 dinner- same as lunch
9pm- 8oz bottle

we tried moving it to 8:30 which worked for 2 nights then she started waking for dummy in night again so going back to 9pm as of tonight!

sorry for such a long winded reply xx

We give Flynn his food before his milk, as I don't want him to be too full to want to try the food! I know that the milk is more important, so some people give it first, but he still takes it all anyway, so doesn't make any difference for him!

we space it out after breakfast so solids are seperate i didnt like the idea of just before or just after as not all solids mix well with milk so we started off with something like this

bottle and porridge for breakkie
mid morning bottle
puree lunch
mid afternoon bottle
puree tea
bedtime bottle

that way he was still able to take his milk if he wanted but also able to sample solids as he would be hungry but not starving, we have found if he is really hungry he wont have solids as its not quick enough, this is why this has worked for us, after nearly 7 weeks of weaning he only sometimes has both mid bottles x

I've ended up doing pretty much the same as PP, staggered, this way she takes milk and solids well.

So...a day in the life of goes something like this
8.00 Bottle
8.30 Porridge
11.30 Bottle
1.30 Lunch
4.00 Bottle
5.30 Tea
7.30/8.00 bottle then zzzzzzzzzzz

Thanks ladies!! Think we will just carry on as we are...Emilia naps from 12:00 till 2:00pm so not sure how we can seperate the milk and lunch.
She loves her solids, and I am sure would eat more if I gave it to her, but dont want her to drop too much milk, as nattynik said, it is still really important - Emilia may have other ideas though!!!!

Wannababy - I was stood doing my ironing and that very same idea come into my head so may give that a try in a few weeks, Thanks

Thanks for the replies ladies - helpful as always xx


xxx

If you find the book see if they have one "this is what to do Liz "while you're there!

We're a bit like PP and mybutler and not giving a bottle at the same time as food, I try to give food in between bottles. She wont take water but I think at 6 months I really going to start encouraging this with her meals.

Will do

Emilia is rubbish at drinking water or juice. I got her a TT explora cup and this was just used as a game! She would put it in her mouth, pull it out again and laugh!! So I took the lid off and gave it to her and she drank quite well from it. Messy job but it worked!

Joanna x

If you find the book see if they have one "this is what to do Liz "while you're there!

We're a bit like PP and mybutler and not giving a bottle at the same time as food, I try to give food in between bottles. She wont take water but I think at 6 months I really going to start encouraging this with her meals.

have you tried juice, we use the cow and gate concentrate and make it really weak