Tired of conflicting info - can you help please

[charlie07]

Hi all

I started weaning Gabbi over the last week
(basically my sis to leave it till she was 5 1/2 - 6 months as we have a lot of allergies and is suggested to leave till almost 6 mths)

Anyway, soooooooooooooo much conflicting info as to how much to give baby when weaning. I'm talking milk, rice and food. I don't want to over feed her and certainly not underfeed, although that's easy, more milk!


What I need to know is:
Ho much rice do you start weaning with?
When do you up this amount?
How much, min or max, of milk to feed baby once fully weaned.
How many meals a day should baby have aswell as the milk?
Do you give the rice before or after or during milk? So many answers to this one!

I keep a record of everything and over the past few weeks, her milk intake has been up and down, but on average 900 ml, approx 35 oz.

She has been on rice since Wednesday and this has been her intake (the rice is mixed with milk):
Wed - 840 ml milk, approx 5 tsp of rice
Thurs - 890 ml milk, 7 tsp rice
Fri - 780 ml milk, 3 tsp rice
Sat - so far 660 ml milk (she will have between 180 - 210 ml later), 30 ml of rice in total.

This evening, she took the rice better than she did this morning. In fact, she was really into it but I wanted her to leave room for her milk.

Any info will help. Thanks

 

[jenstar]

What I need to know is:
Ho much rice do you start weaning with?
When do you up this amount?
How much, min or max, to feed baby once fully weaned.
How many meals a day should baby have aswell as the milk?
Do you give the rice before or after or during milk? So many answers to this one!

Q1 I think I remember my HV saying something about 5 teaspoons but I'm not too sure. I started my baby on fruit and I think I gave him about 5 teaspoons to start with but this wasn't to fill him up, just have a little practice eating.

Q2 I think after a week or so you up the amounts, but I did earlier because my baby seemed to have got the hang of it and wanted more so I'd say that one depends on the child and I definitely wouldn't increase it til they wanted it.

Q3 Never heard any min/ max quantities as in how many oz or grams of food, think this varies greatly from baby to baby just depends on the appetite.

Q4 After about a month you will prob be at the 3 meals stage plus snack if required. My baby doesn't always want a snack and I only give it if he starts whining for food.

Q5 I don't think there is a right or wrong for this one. I gave food before milk when starting for lunch and dinner but milk first in the morning. I knew my baby would take enough milk so I wasn't worried about him fillling up on solids and not wanting his milk.

There is so much about weaning that is just follow your instinct stuff so it's a bit scary if like me it's your first and you don't have your instinct yet!!!!

Hope this helps a little bit.

 

[charlie07]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I have to apologise for question 3, I meant to put min and max amount of MILK to feed aswell as solids once they are fully weaned. I read they still need a certain amount of milk until they are a year old.

I had Gabbi sat on my knee and she is obsessed with the keyboard, so had to write fast, I wasn't even sure if my message made sense or that I put everything I wanted to! Thank you again

At the moment, I am mixing the rice in a small bottle (from when she was newborn), I don't have a bowl yet but as she is only having small amounts, I don't see the point. So this is how I knew she had had 20 ml yesterday as I made up 40 and 20 was what was left, so couldn't tell you how many spoons she had. She tends to take 1/2 a sppon as if you give her a full one, most of the rice is down her chin!! lol I am also mixing the rice with her formula as as she hated it with water.

Thanks again x

 

[jenstar]

When your baby is on 3 meals they should still be getting a pint of milk a day up til age one (16 to 20 oz or 500- 600 ml.) My HV would advise going for the full 20 oz formula plus cow's milk in cereal and mashed potato, plus other dairy produce for the calcium. A lot of milk really bloats the babies too and can put them off solids (not a prob now but it would be when they're 12 months) so my HV said to cut down to 4 bottles a day when they're eating well, but she didn't give a figure for the maximum ml/ oz as far as I can remember.

And yeah my baby loves the keyboard too!