6.5 month old likes solids a bit too much...

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right place here but does anyone have any experience of their baby liking solids more than milk at such a young age?!  My 6.5 month old would much rather eat proper food than have milk and I'm struggling to fit all his feeds in a bit.  Part of the problem is he's moved his night feed to somewhere between 3 & 5 am.  If it's closer to morning, he doesn't want any milk at 7 or 8ish, so we do breakfast (say, at 8 or 8.30).  He will then sometimes take milk after that but then we're in a weird routine where solids come before milk.  Today is particularly odd.  He's only had 3oz milk since 5am, and he only had that cos he wouldn't settle for his nap.  He'd refused it 15 minutes earlier when I offered it downstairs.  It's now 2pm and he's still refusing milk but is now happily chomping on chicken and pitta bread.  The other day he went to bed without any milk at all because he'd had a bottle at 4pm and then eaten a lot at tea.

Do I need to get rid of that night feed to get a balance again?  Or should I restrict what solids I offer?  We're doing BLW so I'm kind of inclined to let him play and eat what he wants but I'm not sure how to get enough milk into him as well?!  On average I'd say he has 18- 24 oz in a 24 hour period.  Is that enough and if so, should I just not worry too much about what he has, when?

Oh, and if he is getting enough milk, would someone be able to help me come up with more of a routine for his feeds please cos at the moment it feels like he's trying to drop a bottle but I'm not sure which one, and how!  I've looked at the sample routines but they all assume a bottle at 7am which he won't do.

[creations]

Hi
At the moment it looks like the amount of milk in 24hrs is ok
Milk intake - what you can expect between 6 months to 12months +
But I would say if it drops too much then I would cut back on solids a bit to ensure he gets his milk or make sure some of his solids are dairy based (cheese, yoghurt, milk sauces, rice pudding) so the overall dairy intake is kept up.  If he is on formula another aspect to consider is added vitamins so possibly looking at using a fortified cereal or giving infant vitamin drops. In the UK vitamin drops are advised anyway.  I used a cow and gate baby muesli (fortified, lots of vits and minerals) but made it up with a very small amount of milk (formula but you can use cows) so it was super thick, let it set for a minute then cut it into blocks and rolled into balls to offer as finger food. I preferred this to regular oats (as porridge or fingers) as it had all the added vits. He still eats these now at 2yrs 8 months!
In terms of routine, I found the early days of solids (also BLW) a bit crazy, like we spent the entire day eating and then sleeping with no play time.  Mine also took to solids in a big way.  I would say go with the flow a bit just now as you are likely to find a new routine and settle into the whole weaning thing in a few weeks after the initial hectic stage of him just loving the solids.  It's really a bit young to be dropping any of the milk feeds even if some of them seem small, I'd keep going with them a while longer and see where it levels out. I would also keep offering milk before solids, solids roughly an hour later.

If you really find the routine (or lack of) unbearable you could try a smaller milk feed at the early morning night feed (3 - 5am) if he will resettle on less, to encourage a full milk feed on morning WU.  You'd ideally be looking to move night feeds to the day before dropping any day feeds too.

hth

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Brilliant, thank you!  I actually did offer an oz less at the nf last night, plus he had it slightly earlier at 4 and he had a good milk feed at 7.30 this morning. That's reassuring to know he is getting enough milk, but also very good tip on the muesli, thanks!  I'm always running out of breakfast ideas.

The lack of routine is OK, it's just that depending on whether he'll have milk in the morning it can be very topsy turvy and it ends up with me having to give him milk 2 hours after his last bottle to get back to the milk-then-solids pattern, which of course doesn't work! I don't mind in that he always ends up full one way or the other and the odd off day doesn't matter but it does my head in trying to figure out what meals / feeds he needs when if we're trying to get out or something!  But you're right, it'll settle down soon.....

[creations]

I'm sure it will settle down and if not in a couple of weeks I'd just decide what your day wants to look like, write it down and 'make' it work.  It's usually us that are scared of routine shifts rather than the LOs, they are quick to adapt in just a few days and then we wonder why we fussed so much
xx

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yes, and in the meantime I think teeth are at play cos he only had 9oz milk yesterday and 9 so far today. But today he's refusing most solids too and I can see sore gums and a tooth on the verge of eruption.  He was happy with cucumber earlier but didn't fancy much else.  Any other good teething finger foods?

[creations]

Mine liked hard foods like bread sticks when teething although I am not sure I gave bread stick at 6 months or waited a while longer.
Celery (raw) is supposed to be great for teething as it has natural local anaesthetic qualities so they get comfort from the hard surface to gum on, then extra comfort from it deadening the area. Also the natural strands of celery generally prevent a big chunk being bitten off so it's just gummed and sucked.  All that said - I never hear of a single LO agreeable to trying this out lol

Don't know where you are, I bought some shop bought baby biscuit things (not rusks which contain a lot of sugar) called moon biscuits which were also good for teething s they were quite hard to gnaw on. Also the crescent is a great shape for small BLW hands.