Hi,
After having weaned my eldest 4 at the then recommended age of 12-13 weeks and the next on medical advice due to reflux at 14 weeks, I was determined that with my youngest I was going to ebf to 6 months and then go down the blw route.
But it was not to be. It got to the point where he was constantly feeding from 1-3pm and 7-11pm every day, grabbing at food on my plate (and eating it) and generally just chewing my food for me
. Plus even with all the feeding he has slow weight gain, which I'm convinced is because he wasn't really sleeping during the day.
So at 18 weeks I decided it was time to start him on his weaning journey, with a tiny bit of baby rice mixed in 1 oz of breast milk, after which he had his first afternoon nap in weeks. Working on the premise that he will only eat what he needs we've quickly progressed to 3 meals a day and at 20weeks he now has:
5-6am Boob
8am Boob
9am Breakfast cereal mixed with 3oz bm
11.30am boob
12pm veg/fruit puree mixed with baby rice made with 1oz bm
3pm Boob
4pm veg/fruit puree mixed with baby rice made with 1oz bm
6pm Boob
9pm Boob
11pm 3oz expressed milk in bottle (dream feed given by Daddy) followed by goodnight boob.
Looking at that it seems like a lot, but he's transformed from wanting to be constantly on the boob with each feed taking at least an hour to most feeds only taking 20min max. Plus he is now having a morning and afternoon nap and goes to bed after the 9pm feed, going straight back to sleep after the 11pm feed. I'm working on getting the 9pm feed earlier and hope he'll eventually go down for the night around 7pm. Apart from the baby rice and cereal, I do make all his food myself and so far he's eaten everything with relish, even such odd combinations as celeriac and apple.
After having weaned my eldest 4 at the then recommended age of 12-13 weeks and the next on medical advice due to reflux at 14 weeks, I was determined that with my youngest I was going to ebf to 6 months and then go down the blw route.
But it was not to be. It got to the point where he was constantly feeding from 1-3pm and 7-11pm every day, grabbing at food on my plate (and eating it) and generally just chewing my food for me
. Plus even with all the feeding he has slow weight gain, which I'm convinced is because he wasn't really sleeping during the day.So at 18 weeks I decided it was time to start him on his weaning journey, with a tiny bit of baby rice mixed in 1 oz of breast milk, after which he had his first afternoon nap in weeks. Working on the premise that he will only eat what he needs we've quickly progressed to 3 meals a day and at 20weeks he now has:
5-6am Boob
8am Boob
9am Breakfast cereal mixed with 3oz bm
11.30am boob
12pm veg/fruit puree mixed with baby rice made with 1oz bm
3pm Boob
4pm veg/fruit puree mixed with baby rice made with 1oz bm
6pm Boob
9pm Boob
11pm 3oz expressed milk in bottle (dream feed given by Daddy) followed by goodnight boob.
Looking at that it seems like a lot, but he's transformed from wanting to be constantly on the boob with each feed taking at least an hour to most feeds only taking 20min max. Plus he is now having a morning and afternoon nap and goes to bed after the 9pm feed, going straight back to sleep after the 11pm feed. I'm working on getting the 9pm feed earlier and hope he'll eventually go down for the night around 7pm. Apart from the baby rice and cereal, I do make all his food myself and so far he's eaten everything with relish, even such odd combinations as celeriac and apple.
My LO had a good few weeks of being like this while he had his growth spurt.
