BLW and hungry baby

[aimee-lou]

Hi all

I need some advice.

Earl has a very good apetite and I'm so pleased at how he is thriving. At the moment he tahes 43oz of milk through the day, but this is going to have to go up shortly. He has just started to go 3 hours between feeds - He's 14weeks old.

I had desperately wanted to BLW but we hit upon a snag as Earl can't have HB milk. We tried to put him on it about 3-4 weeks ago and it was a nightmare and made him poorly. I don't fancy trying lots of different milks when his SMA 1 works so well for him.

Can I just keep giving him milk in larger amounts (8oz is the max my bottles hold) or more frequently in orde to get him to as close as possible to 26 weeks? Or is my hand being forced to start him on small amounts of puree/cereal? I've read that at 4 months their apetites start to calm and they start to make the move towards 3 meals per day (very slowly of course) in their milk consumption. Is this true? Am I worrying for nothing? (my speciality ) Has anyone started with traditional then swapped over to BLW entirely?

Any advice you have please ladies.

Thank you

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Hi Aimee, as I think you know, Ruby used to be a hungry baby! I was so convinced I was going to have to do puree because her appetite would be too great to start solids slowly via BLW. But this just didn't happen at all, her milk intake levelled off and even dropped slightly at 5 months and we easily 'made it' to 6 months. It was actually 7m before she even ate solids and this was no problem for her at all.

I would say to give him as much milk as he wants. Ruby drank 9oz bottles at Earl's age, usually draining them. From what I've heard about puree weaning, giving lots of bottles of milk is waaay easier!

Yes you could start weaning traditionally before 6 months, some people do this for a short period before moving to BLW for a few reasons. I would say though, to avoid this at all possible or maybe stick to one meal a day. Then at 6 months you can start offering him whatever you're eating and gradually phase out the spoon feeding at that one meal.

 

[dom85]

So glad you asked this Aimee, I'm having a similar dilemma myself, especially as certain people are nagging me about solids because he is such a big baby.

 

[Lisa1302]

I started Izzy on purees, although I certainly wouldn't say I have moved to BLW by any means - she does eat often with her hands, I am fairly sure if I wanted to I could move to no spoon feeding from me and she would do just fine, it would just take longer for her to get the food down her! She can use the spoon herself.
SO if you teach them early on to use the spoon and eat with their hands even if you continue to spoon feed until they are completely ready to swap I cant see there being a problem.
Obviously if you spoon fed and never allowed them to ate anything but puree off a spoon that is where an issue would arise.

She was spoon fed solely from 4 to 6 months, then started on finger foods slowly, she will now quite happily eat her toast, sandwich, or whatever it is..I do have to say though I know everyone says they manage fine with no teeth (which they do somehow)..but now she has 3 at the top and 3 at the bottom she finds biting bits off much easier!