Advice on how to best move my LO's feeds from 3 hours to four hours please?

[biggreeneyes]

Hi there,

My LO is nearly nine months old and is baby led weaning and therefore his milk is still his MAIN nutrition of the day.  I did have him eating four hourly a while back but as suggested by friends to try and get him to drink more in the day and perhaps sleep better at night, i went back to a rough 3 hourly feed schedule.  He was pretty clever and just adjusted how much he took at each feed and still drank the same in the whole day   Hee hee, so it didn;t actually achieve anything but we stuck with the 3 hourly feed    But now i want to change it so he doesn't eat as regularly, but just not sure how to go about it without making him really hungry.  Confused about how to make the transition

He is now on 2 naps a day…1) 9-10 or 10/10.30am and 2) 1.30-3pm

He eats about 5 oz at each meal and feeds at 7, 10, 12.30, 3.30 and 6.30 but i would like to get his feeds to 7, 11, 3, and 6.30 if possible.

Any advice would be grateful.  Thanks 

[Seona1973]

do you give any snacks yet? If you wanted to push the milk feed later, you could offer a small snack and drink of water in between breakfast and the 11am milk feed.  What times are you offering meals at the moment?

[Lolly]

I would distract him and offer a small snack like PP suggested. So  feed at 7am then get him to wait by changing activity or offering a small snack until 11am. If he is sleeping until 10/10.30 you haven't got that long to make him wait. You can also try and get him to eat moe at breakfast after his 7am bottle to tide him over. The same goes for the rest of the day, he will have lunch after his 11am bottle so make sure he has things he will eat, he should be ok until after his afternoon nap. You can also offer milk in a sippy for him to drink with lunch.

It may take a few days to settle into a new routine but it's worth sticking to a plan as it won't be long before food needs to take over from milk. Around 10 months *most* bottle fed babies drop to 3 feeds (usually morning, afternoon and bedtime) and then 2 feeds around 1 year.

HTH!

Laura

[biggreeneyes]

Hi to both of you
Thanks so much for your ideas and advice.

Today I did 4 hourly feeds and the first part of the day went well. He ate at 7am, then slept 9.15-11! Ate then just after 11. Had lunch at 12.30 (instead of 11.30-12) then when I put him down for his nap at 1.30, it wasn't so easy! He was tired but also must have been expecting food an hour earlier as per normal, so was hungry. Took half hour of settling him abd he did go to sleep eventually at 2. He only slept for 45 mins and ate at 2.45 rather than 3 and downed the bottle. Then by 6.10 he seemed starving again, and tired!
It's the waiting for third feed which must be hard as he used tp have it at 12.30 and bow has to wait til 3!!
We'll keep at it and hopefully he'll get used to it quickly. I hate him to be starving tho :-( He did drink more each feed tho, so hopefully that will make it all easier!

:-)

[biggreeneyes]

Ps... I don't know that he'll be down to 3 bottles of milk a day at 10 months wirh baby led weaning as he's getting most of his nutrition or calories are still coming from milk. Or did you mean a blw baby?

[Lolly]

That's a good start! Keep at it, it will take a little time but taking more at feeds will help too! Keep offering the solids - are you doing three *meal* yet?

Not all babies drop to 3 bottles around 10 months, but a lot do. You will need to be guided by him, if he starts refusing a bottle or drinking less in his day time bottles that's generally a sign to combine the two day time bottles into 1. I didn't do proper BLW with my two, but keep in mind that by 1 year they need to be taking more solids than milk and milk can really fill them up so watch the quantity as you get closer to 1. From 6 months they need a minimum of 20oz to meet their needs, but this can include the dairy in food, from 1 they only need about 14oz to get their needs met and that doesn't have to be liquid milk.

Laura

[biggreeneyes]

Now im not sure whether to stick to his 3 hour routine as things were all working well at last, sleep wise and yday nap times were not good and neither was his night sleep!  Arrghhhh…

Maybe i am just changing it for me and not him and maybe i am being selfish

[Seona1973]

what mealtimes do you have at the moment - are you offering 3 meals yet?

[biggreeneyes]

Hi

At the moment he has breakfast about 7.30-8am, lunch at 11.30-12 and dinner at 5.  But as i said, he isn;t really eating much food yet. 

I think i am going to stay with 3 hours as once he does start eating in bigger volume he should start drinking less milk and then we will drop a feed anyway.  I am hoping with the BLW he will decide which feed he is not wanting anymore.  So fingers crossed.

[Lolly]

I see what you are saying, they only thing is if he is drinking milk too frequently he isn't going to have a chance to get properly hungry and eat or drink bigger quantities and formula is quite filling. That's one reason for a 4 hour feed routine from 4 months - to get them to eat decent and appropriate sized feeds and not snack. Really after 7/8 months when they are eating solids too 4 hours can be too soon for milk feeds.

Personally I would keep to at least 4 hours between milk feeds to try and encourage him to start eating more solids and he needs to be able to get hungry to do that. Another thought is that the BLW information was written from the perspective that a baby was breastfed (hoping my memory is correct here, it's been a while since I read up on it!) and formula feeding doesn't have the same results - the milk isn't changing, they don't get the thirst quenching foremilk etc. Breast milk is digested quicker than formula so a breastfed baby will get hungrier faster than a formula fed baby so will need to have more feedsin a day.

What do you think?

Laura

Laura