I certainly don't want to contradict your HV but I've honestly never heard that advice. I'll have some other mods take a peak at your post to see if they have any advice but I know most lo's aren't on 3 solid meals until 12 months.
Whilst I don't fully agree with a HV advising 3 solids meals a day by 7 months (because it puts mums under pressure to achieve this when baby may not be ready) I don't think it is as unusual as Siobhan. It all depends on the individual baby, whilst some will be ready and eager for the solids not all will be ready for 3 meals and some at 7 months will show no interest in solids at all, which is also fine, there is no hurry.
However if there are NWs from hunger and LO is being sick from too full tummy I agree to cut back on solids and see where things go from there. Milk is without doubt the primary food until 12 months old whether LO has 3 servings of solids per day or not so you don't want the milk intake to drop and it's milk that will see your LO through the night (not solids).
My advice would be to move the evening solids meal much earlier (or drop it altogether for now), there are 2 ways to do this, either
- move the milk feed early, to just before the 2pm nap, this makes milk E less that 4hrs apart and not ideal at this age, more appropriate for a bit older really. Then at 4pm after nap, the solids meal. This leaves LO hungry enough for BT milk just before bed which should improve the intake and help him through the night.
or
- keep the milk at 4pm after the nap (this should keep a good milk intake as he should be hungry at this time for it), and offer solids at 4.30pm. Although an hour has not passed since the milk feed it doesn't matter so much as solids at this age are just for learning about textures and tastes so it doesn't matter if he is not overly hungry for it or doesn't take much. With the solids at 4.30 (and a smaller amount) he should be ready for his BT milk. This would be my preferred approach at this age.
I would also look at what he is eating for his solids. Remove any whole grain foods which are difficult to digest and can fill baby up too much for them to be hungry for milk (in the UK whole grains are not advised), look at any foods which might be filling without offering much in the way of nutrition and calories (eg rice) again this makes baby full without providing what he needs, and look at any foods which might be suspect in making him throw up. For example I tried mine on a rice cake a couple of times as a little snack and every time he threw up, rice cakes seem bland and harmless enough but were certainly the culprit in our case.
Check he has enough to drink, offer a sippy of water to make sure he is not dehydrated going to bed, mine wasn't much good at using the sippy in the early days so I also offered a bottle of water, for you this might be offering the breast for a drink.
Whilst mine was not a big baby and also didn't take a lot of milk, in our case reducing solids didn't increase milk intake, he took the same amount of milk with or without solids so the solids were an addition to his calorific intake for the day, not a replacement, and I believe this is as it should be, solids add to baby's intake but should not take away form the milk intake - whatever size/weight baby is.
Hope something here helps.