7 month old - quantity & high calorie food?

[Molly2]

Hi Ladies

We started weaning at 6 months and have just completed week 4.  A couple of questions?

1.  She is currently having 2 meals a day, one is 4oz and the second is 2-4oz depending on whether she likes whats on offer, mood/timing, naps & tiredness.   We have gradually moved up to these quantities.  Does this sound like too much?  Her breast feeds have shortened over the past few weeks and I am concerned about this as its always been a battle to get her to bf as much as I'd like as she has always been a slow gainer and is bottom of the charts.

Shortly before her 6mth birthday she started to wake at night to feed (having STTN since 9weeks).  I was really excited that this extra feed coupled with 3 weeks of solids would end up in a better weight gain at next weight in, so I was a bit disappointed when the gain was similar to before the night feeds and solids!!

I am very confused between thinking if she is happy to eat this much, it might be good for her weight gain 'V' if this much food is reducing her milk intake it could have the opposite effect.

2. So far we have tried carrot, sweet potatoe, BNS, sweede, parsnip, pear, bananna & papaya.  Are there any veg/fruits which are high in calories which I can give to help with weight gain? I know avocado and will try soon.

Our routine is roughly

7.00am               Bfeed
9.00-10.00          nap
Around 10-10.30  Bfeed
11.00ish             Solids 4oz of fruit/veg
12.00-2.30pm      nap
2.30pm               Bfeed
4.30pm               Solids btwn 2-4oz (if I'm out and a bit late with this feed she tends to be too tired and just has 2oz)
5.00pm               maybe a nap, seems to nap if she has had a large feed of solids or if she was too tired for solids may have short bfeed 
                         (like a drink) and skip the nap and be cranky until bed time.
6.30pm               Bfeed
6.45-7.00pm        Bed, she may be awake for 30-40 mins after going to bed (if my DH looks in on her after coming home from work) but is
                         quiet and relaxed (sucking her thumb) and always seems ready to go down.
3.00-4.00am        Every 2nd/3rd night she wakes for a bfeed.

Apologies for the epic post as always.  I just remembered that I was really bad at summarising in school!

M

[Freya'sMum]

Hi Molly, don't worry about the epic posts, I'm the same

When you say that dd is slow at gaining weight, is she gaining steadily and just on a low centile, or is she dropping down the centiles each weigh in? The important thing is that steady progression, not where she is on the chart, some folk are just little and that's ok!

Tbh, milk is your biggest source of calories, check out this external link re: comparisons between milk and common starter foods:

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/vitamins/babyfoodcalories.html

My dd#1 was very prem, so my hv advised us to add unsalted butter to all her purees to 'make her fat'. I guess this could be an option, but I'm not sure if it's good advice for a non-prem baby, so please check it out with a health advisor first!

I can't offer an opinion of the quantities you are offering because I have never weighed the girls' portions, I just let them eat until they ask to stop, both communicated this quite clearly so it worked for us, but I would say that if the amount she is taking is affecting her milk intake, you might want to decrease it, for her nutritional intake and for your supply! As the chart I linked to shows, she'll get more from the milk than the solids, so you want to maintain the milk and limit the solids if one needs adjusting!

HTH a bit?

Ax

[Molly2]

Hi Alison,

Thanks for your response.  I think I sort of knew the answer might be to decrease the solids (but had been burying my head in the sand) as I was so looking forward to solids taking some of the pressure off the bfeeding as its been a battle since day 1!

In the 5th month, she gradually dropped a percentile (for the first time since her lowest weight after birth) to the bottom one on our chart but she has gained slowly in line with that percentile over past couple of months.  I have to admit that I was clinging on to bfeeding in the hope that solids would be the answer to our prayers but I now realise after looking at the kelly mom chart (which was really useful) that it was a bit naive of me.

Basically, I have a supper fast feeder, who spits up massively (no problem for her though), so I guess I need to go back to concentrating on the milk feeds and trying to get her to keep enough down!!! Its not much fun that the spit up is now tinged with 'orange' a lot of the time!!

Thanks again

Suzanne

[Freya'sMum]

Don't feel too dispondent if your bf are a struggle, use the fabulous Breastfeeding forum for support (if you haven't already), and try to remember that altho each developmental stage seems to take forever at the time, the months actually fly by and she'll be feeding herself all sorts before you know it!

And don't feel 'naive', you can't possibly know everything and babies don't come with an instruction booklet, that's why these forums and all those encyclopaedias exist, to get advice on the bits we don't know about - I'm hopeless at the whole sleep thing, post there a lot for help, and I'm sure you have things you can offer to other mums too - it's how we all end up supporting each other!

  about the orange vomit!

Ax

[VickyB20]

I add an omega 3, 6, 9 cold-pressed oil blend to my babies' cereal in the morning and to yoghurt.  It's LOADS of calories (270kcal for a tablespoon!) and provides essential fats that are really important for growing little people.  I use one called 'Udo's Choice' on the advice of mother, who's a nutritionist.  You can also get special infant ones.  Might be worth looking into.
Vicky
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