Suggested food and nap routines don't line up - help!

[jrmax]

As my DS2 (7 months) is able to increase his A time to 3 hours now, I'm noticing that the time for feeing and napping don't line up. He's not yet ready to drop the CN, so we end up having a later bed time since I can't extend his naps any longer to suit a good routine that keeps him from being OT, and I don't think a 5:30pm bedtime is appropriate either.

Here's a suggested routine, and the issue I'm confused about below that:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=68458.0

4 Milkfeeds during the day (6-8+ months).

7am - Milk
8am - Solids
11am - Milk
12pm - Solids
3pm - Milk
4/4.30pm - Solids
6.30pm - Milk
10.30pm - D/F if still doing one.

Based on above, my LO would wake at 7am, go down for 9 or 9:30am for first nap.
11:00am for milk is good, but then he can go 3 hours of A time after this, which brings us to 2pm for nap time.
The suggested 4 hour routine would mean a 3pm milk feed, however, that only allows for an hour nap. What if he wants to sleep as long as 2 hours and foregoes the CN?
Currently I'm either putting DS to bed at the 2 hr and 45 min mark, and letting him sleep till 3:15pm for an hour and a half, or putting him down for 2pm and waking him by 3:30 for a feed, which of course pushes everything back...

I could go with the 9-11+mo routine, but that pushes the milk feeds back by a half hour, which I don't think is appropriate for a 7 mo old...?

Does anyone have any suggestions? What do YOU do?

[lil_ginge]

I would LOVE to listen in here... feeling the same woe! x

[*Ali*]

I used to just bring the ers milk feed forward to before the second nap. I just made sure I changed his nappy after the feed to separate the E and S. I don't think it matters if the milk is 4hrs apart once they are on solids.

[Ima shel Alon]

Sorry, all those numbers just muddled up for me with my ADD 
I think I would, however, be able to look at *your* EASY and look if I can see how can things work for you.
I can tell you that what I did was to keep the bottles 4h between each other more or less and have solids sometime during the A time. the sample you are referring to is just that, a sample, and especially during this time before dropping the CN you kind of go by the day, IMO.

[jrmax]

Thanks for the feedback!

I also just checked the BW book, and this is Tracy's suggestion on pages 38/39:

7am: Wake and feed
7:30: Activity
9 or 9:30: Morning Nap
11:15: Breast or bottle (the snack)
11:30: Activity
1: Lunch (solids)
1:30: Activity
2 or 2:30: Afternoon nap
4: Breast or bottle (Snack)
4:15: Activity
5:30 or 6" Dinner (solids)
7: Activity, including bath and then the nighttime routine, which consists of a bottle or breast, book, and tuck in.

So I guess the idea is to alternate milk and solids, rather than offer solids an hour after a milk feed.
With the notion that 'food is for fun until one' doesn't seem to apply here - it's more about getting the solids established. Not sure which school I fall into. I'm still BFing and we are playing with BLW as well as spoon feeding...

But at least I can see how the routine works and fits it all in.

What do others think?

[creations]

Hi there.
I don't think that Tracy's suggestion is necessarily pushing the solids.

Regardless of times the feeds go something like:
WU milk - this is primary food
Breakfast - solids as secondary food whether purée or finger food, quantity is not prescribed
Mid morning feed - initially milk as the primary food, as the months progress this becomes milk and snack, then snack and water
Lunch - solids, secondary food, whether purée or finger food and the quantity is not prescribed
Mid afternoon feed - initially milk as the primary food, as the months progress this becomes milk and snack, then snack and water
Dinner - solids, secondary food, whether purée or finger food, quantity not prescribed
BT milk - primary food

It is up to you which solids meals you introduce and when, some people do not introduce the dinner solids at first and just go with breakfast and lunch. It is also up to you whether you feed purée or finger food, there is no strict rule to either.
The morning and afternoon milk feeds will be dropped as the months progress and replaced with a healthy snack.
The WU and BT milk feeds tend to be the last ones to be dropped, there's no hurry.

Times will vary as naps change.  For now you should keep the milk feeds close to the 4hrs but you don't need to be strict about it.  If you want your LO to have a longer nap and this takes him over the 4hrly feed don't worry, he will eat when he wakes up.  He is also getting a little extra food now in the form of solids so it isn't really a full 4hrs between feeds.
The idea of solids coming an hour after milk isn't that it must be exactly an hour, it is a guidance to encourage LO to take a full milk feed and then build a little appetite up to experiment with the solids being offered.

I hope this helps a little

[oliversmommy]

jrmax - hope you don't mind me barging in on your post, but I just wanted to thank creations - as a FTM who introduced solids to her LO a few weeks ago, this is HUGELY helpful to me, to see how things will progress as LO gets older.  I really appreciate you posting this creations!!! 

[creations]

Glad to help x

[lil_ginge]

jmax... thanks for posting - think this is gonna help a lot of ftm's working through the same stuff.

ima and creations - you legends. gonna bookmark this bad boy as i tread the same path as jmax!!! relieved to know where i am going now.

[jrmax]

Creations - you've saved the day again! Lol... I was trying so hard not to burden you with ANOTHER question, but you outsmarted me and have helped a great deal here as well.

Today is day two of a 2 nap day! DS2 just naturally did this yesterday, and I went with it. And today was great again! I have to admit, I do like less naps - it's easier to get out and about during A times! 

Thanks to everyone for their input. I tried the BF at 11am and 4pm, with solids in between, and my LO took the solids with much more interest - I guess since he had worked up a bit of an appetite!

I'll keep plugging away and adjusting as we go, but I think we might be on to something here. A far cry from 3 months ago - right Creations?! Amazing...

Sending out the love to everyone!

[creations]

you've saved the day again!

[blushes profusely]

FWIW my little man is 15 months now and we still have slightly odd meal times.  Along with changing nap times you can also expect changing poop times (which can throw off the nap times!) and a varying appetite at different times of the day.  For the last few months my DS needed the biggest morning 'snack' you've ever imagined, it was more like lunch but at 10.30/11am, then after he woke from a nap he had an enormous meal at around 2pm (more lunch? or should I call this dinner as it was really the main meal of the day?), followed by a snack around 3.30/4pm and 'dinner' (more of a snack and milk) at 5.15pm.  Only recently has the morning snack reduced to snack size and we now have a split lunch, small sandwich type one pre nap and massive dinner type one after nap...and the second one is moving later too, now around 3 or 3.30pm (more like afternoon snack time).  Then I get confused as to whether he needs a snack at 4 or straight though to another meal at 5.15pm.
So basically, don't fret too much, and along the BW lines follow your baby's cues but also keep tabs on things.  I wouldn't think it ideal to be constantly grazing the entire day (bad for teeth for one thing and doesn't allow appetite to fully build to take in a good meal for another) but following cues on snack and meal times and sizes, and fitting them around naps wherever you can, well I think that's about all you can do.

Sending out the love to everyone!

Liking this.  There's always space for a little more love

[*Ali*]

ITA With creations.

I just looked at the schedule you referred to in bwsayp on page 38 and noticed that Tracy says it is actually what she notices is typical based on the sample routines on this site it isn't what she is saying anyone *should* try to fit their LO into. I think a lot depends on how much solids your LO is eating because I know when my ds2 was 7mo he ate such a small amount at breakfast he couldn't make a long nap after a 3hr A time so we had to do a BF top up before the nap. But my ds1 ate a lot of cereal at breakfast from the getgo so he was OK to go 5hrs between his first two BFs.

[jrmax]

Thanks ladies - if I've learned nothing else from all your support these last few months, it's to 'not stress'. I have to keep reminding myself the 'routine police' aren't coming for me if I get it 'wrong'! LOL!

Things are getting back on track, and I've actually found Tracey's 'suggestion' - or rather, her notes from a 'typical routine' -to be working much better. And it helps DS2 to come a little hungrier to the table as well.

I will say though, regardless of how hungry is, veggies are much harder to get in this guy, than fruit. We started with pears as Tracey suggested, and he rarely takes any pureed veggies. He will try beans, cucumbers, some carrots, he'll lick a pepper - all in whole (steamed) form, so that's good I guess. But I always wonder if he's getting enough.

Also, I think his A times are stretching now too! He's been 'screaming' (and not a mantra cry) at naps now. However, when I walked out with him in my arms b/c DS1 needed me while I was trying to put DS2 down, he stopped crying and was happy! So I pushed the A time another 15-20 mins and he went off to sleep like a charm.

"Just when you think you've got it down, it all changes..." 

[*Ali*]

It's true it's hard to keep up isn't it?
Remember food before one is just for fun. A couple of spoonfuls of pureed carrot contains hardly any calories so isn't going to make much difference to his overall calorie intake. The main thing is that he is experiencing new tastes and textures and getting used to eating. Sounds like he prefers finger foods for at least some foodstuffs. Have you considered baby led weaning?
If you do want him to eat pureed veg have you tried mixing it with pureed fruit such as carrot and apple? Or even mixing it with some milk and baby rice, my ds1 used to like that. Or what about the sweeter veg to start with like butternut squash, pumpkin and swet potato?
He'll get there, there's no rush.

[creations]

My little man is a massive fruit lover too.  You could try finger food veg rather than puree, sometimes the different texture encourages exploration, asparagus, green beans, roasted wedges of sweet potato/turnip/butternut squash (also helpful as they are the sweeter veg), fried mushrooms go down a treat here.

OT but YaY! for you working out the A time push  Go mummy!!

posted same time as Ali - seems I've said exactly the same thing

[jrmax]

Hi gals,

Ali, yes, we've been experimenting with BLW. You're right - he does seem to prefer his veggies in 'whole' form, for the most part. However, just yesterday and today he took sweet potato puree, and even pea puree! I've discovered he quite likes cucumber, munching away on the soft seeds.

I always start with whole food - cut up pears, veggies etc., - which actually gives me time to prepare other/more food for my older son, then once I sit down to eat/join the table, I'll try a few spoons of puree.

Creations, I tried whole squash the other day. The first round he dug right in... however 'left-overs' at the second meal didn't go quite as well, and he's turned up his nose at it the next offering too. Ah well. I'll try that again another time. Asparagus is a GREAT option! As are green and yellow beans. They don't 'break' quite the way other veggies like carrots do when steamed so he can gnaw away at them.

I have tried mixing some pear with veggies, and that has worked sometimes, but I think the key is also to space out his solids. Giving him solids an hour after BF didn't allow him to work up enough of an appetite, so he could 'refuse' most foods quite happily. When he's hungry, he certainly is more open to trying whatever I've got for him. 

I really like the idea of BLW, and I'm exploring with it and seeing the benefits of different textures for my little guy, knowing he really likes to 'be in charge'... lol. When I'm a little pushed for time, or I'm out, I'm glad he'll take some pureed foods though. It's a good balance for me at the moment.

We've managed quite well down to 2 naps a day now! Yesterday was a 3 nap day, but we haven't done that in quite a while, but he's teething at the moment and we had an EW. I'm working with Tracey's 'observation' routine on page 38 and found this works well for us.

Thanks for the encouragement ladies... his naps are extending beautifully too now. Creations, you'll be thrilled to hear that he goes at LEAST an hour and 15 now, but more often sleeps for an hour and a half, and sometimes I'll even get an hour and 45 min!! YEEHAW! Far cry from 4 months ago!! I'm so relieved!

I just keep speaking my new mantra: Every day gets easier and easier... 

Chat soon! xx

[*Ali*]

That sounds like it is all going well. glad to hear it.

[creations]

glad to hear it.

me too.  Good work mummy

[jrmax]

Thanks awesome Mamas!! Onward and upward! ;-) 

With much appreciation! xxx

[AGILL]

Hello,
I know that this thread hasn't been active for a few weeks, but I thought it silly to start a new topic. DS was 6mo yesterday and we're on week 1 of solids introduction, but we're going very slowly. We have also dropped the catnap for two nice long 2 hr naps (YAY!)
So my question: DS has a bottle feed at approx. 7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm. But now that he's dropped the catnap, the 3pm bottle should get pushed forward to when he wakes at 4pm. That would be fine, but there's been a few days here and there when he's either woken early from hunger from his pm nap, or he's actually hungry again before his pm nap. This happened the other day, and I gave him a quick 60ml just to tide him over, but it was a spur of the moment band-aid solution.
I'm sure things will be fine once he's worked up to eating a decent quantity of solids at lunchtime, but I'm not expecting him to do that for at least another couple of months. If I split bottle n° 3 to half before his nap and half after the nap, would this be a bad thing to do? To me it seems that we'd be going backwards a bit, because it's 5 milk feeds a day instead of 4, and it'd also mean that bottles n° 3 and 4 are more "snacks" than meals, which I also think might not be good. I also can't increase the milk in individual bottles because he's a refluxer and it's not good to overstuff them.
Any words of wisdom? Many thanks!!

[creations]

I think a lot of people find similar when naps change or when solids are introduced.  There's no harm in splitting those bottles whilst LO settles into the new routine.  FWIW when I intr4oduced solids DS went from 4 milk feeds plus a DF to about 7 per day.  He absolutely had to have another milk feed after every solids meal even though he'd had his milk at his regular time and was also drinking water with the solids meals.  It does settle down though.  Don't worry.

With regards to not increasing the milk in each bottle though, I would let him have as much as he wants at each milk feed which means offering enough for him to leave a little in the bottle (but not forcing or encouraging him to finish bottles).
hth

[AGILL]

Thanks Creations. Okay, I'll go ahead and split that bottle for the time being until we settle into our changes. He's just doing so well as is, so change always makes me nervous that everything's going to fly out the window! Silly, I know...

[jrmax]

Glad this thread has been helpful to others too! Good luck AGILL! :-)

[creations]

change always makes me nervous that everything's going to fly out the window!

You're not alone.  I think most of us are the same.  Every time I want or need to make a change I get nervous about everything going to pot too but usually the process of thinking it through before hand (posting a thread generates thoughts and unconscious if not conscious planning) gets things reasonably straight in my head before I try the change and most times the changes go surprisingly smoothly.

[AGILL]

I know what you mean. I walk around thinking about the possible consequences of changes that could/should be made and I drive myself absolutely bonkers! I'm not exactly a "go with the flow" type, so sometimes it's really difficult to see things clearly and from outside the box. I am sooo glad and thankful that my sister gave me BWSAYP five years ago after the birth of DS1 and that I found the forums shortly afterwards. And I'd still be lost without them with DS2, who is so different from his big brother. We live in France and their way of raising babies just doesn't sit well with me in general. Thanks to everyone for sharing your wisdom and feedback! Alison xx