8 months old and BLW - how to reduce bottles?

[Littlemissbump82]

Hi, I have been doing BLW since 6 months with my 8 1/2 month old - it is going well and she is eating more and more. She is still on 4 bottles a day and I am not sure if I need to be reducing her bottles by now? She seems to fill herself up on her milk and play with her food, but I know from changing her nappies that she actually eating some! She went through a stage a couple of weeks ago of waking up in the night and drinking up to 8oz of milk but I think this must have been a growth spurt/teething as she is back to sleeping through now ... Her EASY is roughly:


E - 7.30am (6oz milk)
A - including breakfast (weetabix/porridge)
S - 9.30am (1 hour - 1.5 hours)

E - 11.30 (5oz milk)
A - including lunch (sandwich or toast, fruit, cucumber/tomatoes etc)
S - 2 (approx. 1 hour - 1.5 hours)

E - 3 (5oz milk)
A - including dinner (veggies/chicken/pasta, yogurt, fruit etc) at 5.30 and bath at 6
(we cut the afternoon nap out but sometimes if I have to go out in the car she does have a 30 min before dinner)
E - 6.30pm (6-7oz milk)
S - bed at 7pm

Do I need to be cutting out the lunchtime bottle? Also, should I be giving her any of her milk in a sippy cup yet? She has water in a sippy cup with her lunch and dinner but I've never tried milk in there. Thank you for your help x

[Shiv52]

At 8 months LOs still need to be getting about 500-600mls of milk so 20 oz in a day.  Given that she only takes 5oz twice in the day I would be inclined  to leave it as it is.  Most people start to think abotu cutting a bottle if they are getting refused. 

We moved to 4-3 feeds at  10 months.  Milk is still the most important part of diet at this stage. So long as you are leaving a while between milk and offering solids she should be hungry enough to eat.  It can take longer for them to eat big quantities of solids using BLW.  I know my LO seemed to eat very little  but all of a sudden clears her plate so has obviously got the hang of it!

[Lemonthyme]

I think the idea of blw (I did trad weaning so this is only what I know from friends) is that you let them reduce their milk intake at their own pace?

[creations]

Hey LMB - I think it is a good idea to try milk in the sippy because at some point (12 months?) they 'should' be dropping the bottle and having their milk in a sippy or doidy cup.  I think there are certain associations LO makes that milk comes from breast or bottle so it can be difficult to cross over to the cup if they've only ever had water or juice in the cup and milk in bottles.  Having said that I think some people go cold turkey on the bottle.  I offer milk or water in the sippy even though DS (8 mths) still gets his bottles as I'd rather go the slow and steady route to sippy drinking, I don't like doing anything cold turkey!