BLW - Baby led weaning support thread

[faille]

Lol Claire, I've had episodes like that with dinner latetly, she'll demolish what she's given and I've had to give her more of mine and end up running out of things to offer! Luckily when we get to that stage though she's usually finished lol

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

glad it's not just me!

She did want all her 8oz bottle after. I'm a bit confused now as to whether I should start offering less milk at lunchtime, I thought she would just leave milk if she'd eaten a lot but this doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[faille]

glad it's not just me!

She did want all her 8oz bottle after. I'm a bit confused now as to whether I should start offering less milk at lunchtime, I thought she would just leave milk if she'd eaten a lot but this doesn't seem to be the case.

We had that yesterday. She had food when she should have been due a bottle and she ate loads. And almost instantly after, she had all of an 8oz bottle. I'm really not sure what to do either. If this is the 'mid morning' one that they usually drop next, I might experiment over the next week and just offer like 2oz less.

But then I don't know whether to let them say how much and when still or whether we should at least encourage a little how much they take? She wasn't crying for a bottle, we just offered it because she "should" have wanted it. I'm still going by feeding every 4hrs and I don't know whether that's right anymore

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

glad it's not just me!

She did want all her 8oz bottle after. I'm a bit confused now as to whether I should start offering less milk at lunchtime, I thought she would just leave milk if she'd eaten a lot but this doesn't seem to be the case.

We had that yesterday. She had food when she should have been due a bottle and she ate loads. And almost instantly after, she had all of an 8oz bottle. I'm really not sure what to do either. If this is the 'mid morning' one that they usually drop next, I might experiment over the next week and just offer like 2oz less.

But then I don't know whether to let them say how much and when still or whether we should at least encourage a little how much they take? She wasn't crying for a bottle, we just offered it because she "should" have wanted it. I'm still going by feeding every 4hrs and I don't know whether that's right anymore

I'm still feeding every 4 hours too. I would prefer to 'demand' feed but I have no idea how to do that with FF...I don't want to wait until Ruby is starving to feed her, nor do I want her waking up hungry in the night because she has missed feeds during the day. Sounds dumb but Ruby has never had specific hunger cues apart from being generally fussy which could be for any other reason, and since I started feeding every x hours at about 4 weeks this has worked fine, now I'm not sure!

Think I will try offering 6oz at lunchtime now. I can always give extra at the next feed if she seems really hungry...

 

[faille]

Yeah, same here Claire. When she was first born we could tell if she was hungry and the pattern soon seemed to be every 4hrs so that's what we stuck with.

I'm reluctant to mess about with her feeds because she sleeps so well and I don't want her waking etc either but on the other hand, I'm so paranoid that I'm overfeeding her - especially with the amount of weight she gains! She'll quite easily sit there and take an 8oz bottle after loads of food and without 'asking' for it.

She'll often take 8oz, have dinner (food) and then another 8oz in the space of 3hrs which cannot be right?? She rarely cries for milk anymore so I'm not sure whether I could go back to demand feeding because I don't think I'd recognise any cues lol

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Ruby will take her bottles 3 hourly sometimes as well. At the weekend we're often up 2 hours later than usual so she has her first bottle at 9am, then another at midday, then 4pm, then about 6.30pm so that's not even 3 hours!

Well I'm pretty much decided I'm going to reduce the middayish bottle to 6oz. If that seems to be working and she's eating food ok then I will reduce the 3.30pm-ish one to 6oz too.

 

[faille]

Violet had some chicken, a lettuce leaf, half a necturine and half a breadstick for lunch today. She ate most of the chicken (was only 2 bite-size pieces so hardly much!), most of the breadstick and didn't seem interested in the lettuce or necturine. She's been munching so much on lettuce lately that I thought it was another winner but not today!

She didn't eat as much either today and she had food near on 2 hours after her bottle. I'm really starting to think that I should just offer the food before a bottle and do as Claire is going to, and drop that one down by a couple of oz's and see how we go with letting the bottle top up the food, not the other way round (although that goes against everything I've read?).. She seems to do so much better when offered food first.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

I think it is ok to let the bottle top up the food at this age. I just gave her a 6oz bottle actually and she was fine with it...even started to sit up towards the end which she does sometimes do if she's not that hungry.

 

[Lucy_lu_84]

I've been wondering about bottles to... my LO has gone up an oz in past few days and seems o be swallowing a fair amount of food. Is this becuase he never sits still lol! He's had 5 7oz bottles a day for past couple. Does this sound about right?

he ate practically half a slice of toast yesterday. we were out and he was sat in a high chair at table and scoffed it down. Shoved a big piece in his mouth and kept expecting it to come out but it never did. I even popped a finger in his mouth to check if it was luring but he'd swallowed

 

[purple_socks]

i have big news....s'cuse my laziness tho, am gonna cut and paste from my journal:

we appear to have started BLW earlier than planned! tonight Kian grabbed some chicked off daddy's plate and stuffed it in his mouth! He didn't swallow it or anything...he just kept taking it back out and putting it back in his mouth until he dropped it. He was pretty happy playing with it but cried when he dropped it so i figured i'd follow his lead (it is called baby led weaning after all!) and i gave him a green bean off my plate which he sucked to death for the rest of dinner! it was quite cute coz at one point he had the bean and his thumb in his mouth and was sucking both

i don't think we're going to get into it properly yet as he's only 5 month (5 month exactly 2day!) so i'll prob just offer him a little bit of veg when we have dinner but not start it properly until 6 months...i'm not too bothered abt him playing with food a bit earlier than 6months because i could quite clearly see he wasn't actually eating any of it! i don't think thats going to happen for a while.

 

[TigerLady]

Aww, well done Kian! Good for you for following his cues. I offer Otter bits of veg, too.. and some sauce on occassion. I think it is a great way to start early for babies that have let us know they are ready!

 

[JayleighAnn]

Well done Kian!
Halen was playing with food from about 5mo, mostly carrot and cucumber sticks when I was doing sandwhiches or salads and he was trying to grab mine from my plate, he was just sucking and licking it, not chewing.

 

[purple_socks]

yeah i think we'll b playing with veg and salads for the time being...we'll move onto more 'meal' type foods when he's a bit older.

 

[JayleighAnn]

Thats what we did, he dodnt have a meal until last week x

 

[purple_socks]

tiger lady- i just noticed ur ticker says that otter is 1 day older than kian! happy 5months 4 yesterday!

 

[TigerLady]

And happy 5 months to Kian!

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

ooh it sounds like Kian is really interested!

Ruby ate sweet potato wedges for her 'tea', she ate lots! Shame I burnt them and had to cut the burnt bits off so there wasn't a lot left but she liked them

 

[JayleighAnn]

Aww thats wicked! Well done Ruby! Halen had roasted carrot at an xmas party dinner on Saturday and he loved it, there was huge chunks in his poo the day after lol

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

They all seem to love roasted veg!

 

[faille]

Well done Kian


I done a very basic stir fry tonight with egg noodles and bean sprouts (was a bit too basic haha, had hardly any taste ). BUT, Violet loved the noodles and done sooo well with them, especially considering she's only had them once or twice before. (ps. no 'finished' sign today )