Author Topic: balancing food, rice cereal, and breast milk quantities for 8 month old  (Read 1679 times)

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Offline Kirstenjohnson0529

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My 8 month old has been eating solids for a while.  We started with rice cereal at 5 months then introduced real food just after 6 months.  Thankfully, she is wonderful eater!  Here's my dilemma.  I'm just not sure how much "real" food she should be eating.  I have been making my own baby food and freezing it in ice cube trays so the serving size is approximately 1 ounce.  Here's what a "typically" feeding looks like...

1. Breastfeed (about 3-4 minutes per side)
2. 1 ounce of real food
3. 1 small 1/4 cup of rice cereal

It seems like I should switch the amount of real food and cereal because the goal is to work toward eating real food all the time...not rice cereal.  The reason why I keep giving it to her because she LOVES it.  We've started calling it her baby dessert.  She squeals with happiness when she sees me coming with it. 

How many ounces of real food should an 8 month old be eating? Should I remove rice cereal all together?

I would love to hear what others have done. 

Offline *Ali*

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Re: balancing food, rice cereal, and breast milk quantities for 8 month old
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2014, 21:48:34 pm »
How many BFs is she having in 24hrs? That is the main concern. At this age I would be wanting to ensure she is having at least 4 full feeds as breast milk is where she should be getting the majority of her nutrients from.

How many solid meals is she having? Current recommendations are to gradually introduce solids and to add a third meal between 8-9mo.

Is she sleeping through the night or does she wake for feeds? If so how many?

Is the "real food" finger food she is feeding herself or are you spoon feeding her?

Does she have any constipation issues? That is sometimes a concern with large quantities of rice cereal.

I would probably look at moving to a more varied diet rather than offering the same thing (rice cereal) at every meal. Could you just offer the rice cereal after dinner as dessert?
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011


Offline Kirstenjohnson0529

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Re: balancing food, rice cereal, and breast milk quantities for 8 month old
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2014, 23:03:25 pm »
She receives 4 breast feedings per day. 3 are done from the breast. They last one is right before bed and is a bottle of pumped breast milk. I like the reassurance of knowing how many ounces she's getting right before bed. She sleeps all night without eating. It's typically 12-13 hours.

She gets the BM, real food, and cereal 3 times per day. The only one that's only milk is the bedtime feeding. I've been keeping the same food all day long on a 3 day rotation. So if she's eating peas, she eats those 3 times per day for 3 days. Since shes been such a good eater and had no reactions, a few weeks back I decided to mix it up and offer fruits in morning (7:30-8:00ish), fruit and veggie at lunch (12:00-12:30ish), and all veggie at dinner feeding (4:00-4:30ish) each followed up by rice cereal. I did that for 2 days. By the end of the second day she had an AWFUL diaper rash. I thought it was due to too many different foods in one day, so I went back to 1 food all day long.

Her food is puréed fruits and veggies that I spoon feed. I have thought of offering her some finger foods but have not done it yet.

She does have constipation from time to time.

Offline *Ali*

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Re: balancing food, rice cereal, and breast milk quantities for 8 month old
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2014, 00:28:09 am »
So that is great. It sounds like she is getting plenty of milk. :)

I would maybe concentrate in varying her diet now then.
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011