Confused about feeding 11 month old.

[corimorgan]

I am totally confused on how I should be feeding my 11 month old. Do I transition her off formula at 12 months? I feel like I am feeding her all of the time. She is also a very picky eater. I read that I should just decide what is for meal times and if she doesn't eat that then not give her anything else. Normally I try a million different things to find what she will eat. So I just stopped doing that.

Her is our routine. Does anyone mind looking at this and letting me know if I am on the right track?

6:00 wake and feed an 8oz. bottle of formula (Wish she slept later!!)
7:30 Breakfast
9:00 Nap (She is starting to transition to 1 nap so this is the short one for the day)
9:30 Wake and small snack of fruit usually
11:30 6oz. bottle of formula
12:30 Lunch
2:00 Snack
2:30 Nap
4:00 Wake
5:00 6oz. bottle of formula
6:00 Dinner
8:00 Bedtime

[Shiv52]

I feel like that too sometimes!!  Like I spend my whole day making, then serving, then tidying up after my LOs meals!!  I always give her finger foods first and that takes ages and then spoon feed and all the chatting etc.  Can be a half hour or more for a meal!! 

Your routine looks great to me.  Very similar to mine.  My LO has just turned one year.  We have breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner and I breastfeed morning and night and offer after each nap during the day.  We are also transitioning to one nap so soon there'll only be one milk feed during the day I imagine.  You can still keep with the formula once they turn 1 or start a transition to cows milk.

My only suggestion would be to eventually move the 5pm bottle and replace it with a small snack (or not depending on how hungry she is) and give the bottle before bedtime.  Means she would have more of an appetite for solids at dinner time? 

[Mimi 2]

I would switch the order of the bottle with the food, hopefully this will encourage her to take in more food.  Also by 12 mos, you can cut down the amount of milk (formula or whole milk) to about 2 servings (16 oz or 500mL).  Again this should encourage her to eat instead of filling up on milk. 

[corimorgan]

Thanks for the quick response ladies!! I almost switched the order of the bottles yesterday but I got scared that wasn't the right thing to do. I'll give that a try tonight at dinner.

Thanks again!!

[Shiv52]

Good stuff!  Hope it went well.  Did he eat any more solids?

[corimorgan]

Tonight I gave her a snack after her nap because she is hungry when she gets up. I then tried to giver her solid dinner at dinner time and she refused to eat. She just looked at the food seeming confused and then started crying hysterically. I gave in and gave her the bottle and she drank it down and was fine. Later on this evening I tried to giver her a real dinner and she didn't really want that either, she managed to eat some fruit though.

Any ideas on how to switch the order of things??

[Shiv52]

Awh poor wee munchkin must have been confused.  How about initially spliting the feeds?  I have copied your routine below and added some changes.  What do you think??


I would keep the first bit the same for now:
6:00 wake and feed an 8oz. bottle of formula (Wish she slept later!!)
7:30 Breakfast
9:00 Nap (She is starting to transition to 1 nap so this is the short one for the day)
9:30 Wake and small snack of fruit usually


11:30 6oz. bottle of formula   (Give 3oz of formula here-enough to make her feel like shes had a bottle but not enough to fill her)
12:30 Lunch (then offer rest of bottle AFTER solids)
2:00 Snack
2:30 Nap
4:00 Wake
5:00 6oz. bottle of formula (3oz of formula)
6:00 Dinner
Then offer rest of milk feed before bed or bigger milk feed depending on if she ate her dinner
8:00 Bedtime


My only other suggestion is to remove the snack and still let her have her 11.30 6oz of milk  but at 11am and move lunch to about 1pm ish if you think she would adapt to that easier.
So your routine would be:

6:00 wake and feed an 8oz. bottle of formula (Wish she slept later!!)
7:30 Breakfast
9:00 Nap (She is starting to transition to 1 nap so this is the short one for the day)
9:30 Wake and small snack of fruit usually
11:00 6oz. bottle of formula
1.00 (ish)Lunch
2:30 Nap
4:00 Wake
4.00 6oz. bottle of formula (Split feed)
6:00 Dinner
Rest of milk feed before bed
8:00 Bedtime

Be interesting to see if you cut out the snacks would it improve her appetite at meal times??

I think by 1 little ones need 20 ounces of milk a day inclusive of milk you use in solids so you are right on track there. 

What do you think would work best for you?

[corimorgan]

I like all of your suggestions. This morning she drank her entire bottle then refused breakfast 1.5 later?? She ate a couple of bites of banana that is it. I was thinking I was doing too many snacks. She never refuses snacks! Maybe she is waiting for them. So cutting out that morning snack and then pushing up that bottle earlier I think might just work. Then splitting up the feeds is also another great idea, especially for the evening. So that will be the plan today. Moving the lunch bottle up earlier and cutting out that snack. Then I will do the split feed for evening time.

I will let you know how it goes. Thanks so much for all of your help!!! You are a superstar!!

[Shiv52]

So glad you've a plan.  Keep it mind it might take a few days for it to settle in and get her hungry for more solids!

Keep me posted!!