How to reduce milk feeds if giving before weaning food at meal times

[Canadian Nat]

My 6.5 month old is breastfed but for one bottle of formula a night which is given at the bedtime feed.  She is roughly on a 4 hour EASY, but no day is the same exactly with timings/lengths of naps and feeds but I stick to the 4 hour EAST as best I can. 

She wakes unfortunately early in the morning, either 3/4/5am.  I feed her at this point since she has her last feed at about 7.15/7.30pm at night.  Then I try and put her back to sleep, having treated the feed like a night feed.  She often will go back to sleep with the paci after a while. 

She is weaning and takes about 3 icecube sized portions of food per meal. I give her milk with meals twice day.  I give the rest of the feeds as breastmilk only and until recently, she used to have breastmilk after each meal.  But I have just started doing it the other way around following advice about her draining the bottle at bedtime: I am now trying to give her milk before the weaning food as it is thought that she is perhaps draining the bottle at bedtime (this was my problem I posted on the bottle feeding board) because she may be getting full up on low calories weaning food and lacking the high calorie breast milk.  So, to summarise: she is roughly having 4 feeds a day, plus a night feed (the 3/4/5am feed). With two of these feeds she is having her weaning meals.

I would like to know how she will manage to reduce the breastmilk gradually and drop these feeds if I am giving her the milk first?  (With my other baby, I was advised to give her the weaning food first and then the milk so that she would be hungry for the new foods. So I am new to doing it milk first and weaning food after).

[*Ali*]

It will happen gradually as she eats more solid food but most babies have at least 4 BFs in the day until 12mo. Some drop early to 3 breast feeds a day around 10mo. Up until 1yo you don't necessarily want the milk intake to drop (although it will as I said). As she grows she will need more calories and probably take those from the increasing solids. Until 12mo milk (breast or formula) should be her main source of nutrition.

[jessmum46]

I know it's tricky to get your head around but honestly, it just happens . With DD I just offered solids to appetite an hour or so after her breastfeeds.  If she ate everything I offered, I offered a bit more next time.  Around 9-10 months as Ali said she started to be quite disinterested in her mid-afternoon feed, so we dropped that at around that time.  By the time she was 11-12 months even though she was on 3 bf a day I can only assume she'd gradually reduced the amount she was taking as she barely noticed when we stopped the feeds (and I had no issues with engorgement etc).  Guess I'm trying to say don't worry about it, it will work out fine x

[Canadian Nat]

OK, thanks.

But here's what is happening now, and it relates perhaps to dropping the feeds you mentioned:

At 3/4am when she has woken up this morning and yesterday morning, she didn't seem to take a lot of milk.  This morning in fact, she seemed more sleepy than interested in feeding.  But I encouraged her to stage awake as much as possible to finish as much of the feed as possible.   I then put her down.  She slept for about 2 hours or so, the same as the other early mornings, until about 6.30/7am.  Now, here is where I get trouble for the rest of the morning:  once awake, I offered her milk again as it was about time, but she didn't seem that fussed and doesn't take much.  It wasn't 4 hours but nearer 3 hours since that early morning feed at 3/4am.  Could it be she was full up and didn't need any milk?  She hasn't behaved like this until the last two mornings.  Once I gave up on that feed, I got her dressed and went down and got us all breakfast.  By the time she had her porridge, it was about 40 mins since I had tried to give her breastmilk.  She was interested in that and got quite upset at times.  I took that to mean she is really eager for the food and is impatient when I'm too slow to put the spoon to her mouth.  But it wasn't quite right and I thought something else might be bothering her?  She was acting tired.  She was rubbing her head and scrunching her eyes up.  I take these as usual tired signs for her.  She had yawned quite soon after getting up this morning too.  She does this every morning and I wonder why is she yawning so soon after getting up?  I kept her up for 3hours of A, and when she went down, she only had half an hour.  This again is typical.  Each day, the mornings seem a complete mess for her naps.  I think she must be tired but she doesn't sleep long at all.  By the afternoon, she has a good hour or more though. 

So, in summary, I am wondering why she is not so interested in the early morning feeds (and also in the day sometimes, she doesn't seem to take much milk but is more interested in what is going on around) -  is she already starting to cut back on her milk? And I wonder why she is yawning and giving me tired signs soon after her night's sleep, and then not managing to nap?

[jessmum46]

It sounds like two separate issues to me.....

Not wanting to eat first thing is not that uncommon.  If she prefers (and you have no time constraints) then there's no reason you can't wait 30 mins or so until her first milk feed of the day.  But equally it could be that she isn't hungry if she's taken a big feed at 3/4am and she may be ready to start moving towards reducing or dropping that feed.  Do you feed both sides usually?  You could try just offering one side or just letting her take what she wants, but not making any special effort to keep her awake and see if that changes anything?

The tired signs followed by 30 minute nap sound like more of a routine issue to me.  Have you posted/do you want to post on one of the sleep boards for some advice on that front?

[*Ali*]

A NF late in the night that ends up being close to the morning wake up can definitely mean she isn't hungry enough for the morning wake up feed. That is one of the reasons Tracy was keen on a DF as it meant the NF was much earlier and the long stretch was afterwards giving babies time to get hungry again. I'd maybe try her with the breast again after 30 mins or so if she isn't interested when she first wakes up. It is way too early to drop a BF at 6.5mo so if she is taking solids over the breast milk at this age then the WHO recommends cutting back on solids until the milk intake increases and then try again after a few weeks. Milk is much more important at this age. Distraction is a big issue at this age. I found feeding in the still dark bedroom as soon as they woke helped.

It does sound like she was still tired this morning, maybe 3hrs was too much for her. Feel free to post on a sleep board if you need help with naps.

Posted with jessmum, I agree I wouldn't make and effort to increase that NF if she is going back to sleep after just a bit.

[Canadian Nat]

Yes, I was wondering whether she might be starting to take in less milk and that may be what I am seeing at that first feed of the day.  I offer both sides, yes.  And yes, I may try offering one side and just have to use the paci to get her back to sleep for the last few hours of the night.

I have posted on the sleep board about naps before but she was younger and now things may have a different take on them.  So I may try posting there about all that.

I hear what you're saying about the dreamfeed.  I have never really gone with that one though.  I suppose I really didn't find that it suited me or the babies.  But I understand.  So I could try offering the breastfeed half an hour later once she has woken for the day if she isn't interested at first.  I do also feed her in the dark quiet room when she wakes for that night feed.  It helps a bit I think  to keep her in the mindset of 'night'.

I put her down for her first nap a bit earlier today and I managed to take the toddler to the park while my mum kept watch on the baby while she napped.  Not surprisingly, she took just over an hour, which was good.  Having the noisy toddler out of the way no doubt helped.  I unfortunately, can't do that every time though...What a shame.  It seems that the toddler has a lot to do with the failure of my baby's naps...Nothing I can do about it...I will still post on the naps board probably though as I mention above.

Also, another question (coming thick and fast the moment!):  Do you know why she might be very fidgety, and pulling with her hand at the muslin that is over my shoulder, or pulling at my clothes, reaching up to my face, whacking her hand on my chest and generally flinging her hand around while she is feeding?   It feels like quite a violent and frustrating time feeding her at the moment!  She seems to do it at some point during almost every feed.  Any thoughts?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

DD3 was always a fidgety feeder and it got worse as she got more mobile - snapping my bra, slapping at my chest - I was mostly doing all her bf in a dark room at that point!

As for the noisy toddler - white noise is what helps us to block out house/kid noise for the baby.

[Canadian Nat]

Thanks for the commiseration!  It's good to know that my situation sounds familiar!  Not even the dark room seems to calm this behaviour down!

[*Ali*]

Maybe hold her hand or give her something to hold.  I'd try to stop get hitting you now to nip it in the bud.  Maybe a quiet "gently" and holding her hand gently to your chest might help.

[Canadian Nat]

Will do.  I have sort of tried to hold her hand when I can be bothered, the rest of the time I almost feel bad if I cramp her style!  Maybe she is enjoying herself and I'm spoiling her fun!  But really, I'll try and nip it in the bud, because she's a big girl and packs a hefty punch!