"solids first" transition - 8 months

[ladymugg]

My little girl of 8 months is a hearty 3 solid meals a day eater, always 1 hour after her bottle (sometimes 1-2 hours after bottle for lunch, depends if we are out and about etc).  (Bottles are still on a roughly 4 hour routine (wake up, mid morning, mid afternoon, bedtime), but we are on 3 hours awake etc - I guess I'm on a 4.5-5 hr EAEASY if that makes sense).

In New Zealand where I live, they recommend around 8 months you offer solids first, and then the bottle (or breast if you're BF).  I'm nervous about this upsetting her routine too much.  I can't find anywhere in my "Solves All Your Problems" book any tips for this. 

Those who have done this - is this usually an easy transition?  My baby still has around 800ml of formula a day, I guess I should expect this to drop a little after that.  Also do you do the bottle after the meal or wait an hour or so?

I am nervous that she won't sleep or this will be too much change!!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Here the emphasis is on formula or bm being the main source of nutrition until one year old so tbh we never did swap them around, we dropped midday feeds starting around 11 months and replaced them with a small snack. Still do morning milk right upon wake up! If she is doing fine the way things are I would leave it. She may start taking less at one of her bottles at which point you could cut down to three but we were still mostly bf at 8 months so not sure what the "normal" age for that would be for a ff lo.

[Martini~]

Depending on the region in the world, it differes much. But I guess in each country there are happy children no matter what routine they follow, so firstly don't be afraid! Do what you feel is the best for you and your dd if it suits you well.

From my experience, we ditched 11am bottle around that age because of couple of reasons. DS was not hungry at 11am, his overall milk I take dropped down and if he took a good feed at 11, he was refusing other milks and I wanted him to take a good lunch and 1h after routine wasn't working for us.
I was just giving less and less milk very couple of days, moved solid lunch to be just after milk so to satisfy his hunger and it was fine. I also moved afternoon milk slightly earlier as he was more eager to take it without 11am milk. We are currently on 3 bottles a day and we will be preparing to drop it to two somewhere around 11-12mo but once again because he starts to drop his interest and if takes a good afternoon milk, he refuses BT milk and also because he started to lose interest in solids.

I will ask other mods from NZ for experience, maybe someone will be able to help.

[creations]

Like pps I never switched to solids first. Despite being a bit nervous about when to drop the milk feeds or how it would happen in the end it was all very smooth. When he had less interest in one or more of his milk feeds I switched 1 milk feed to a solids snack with water, later switched another leaving WU and BT milk in place and there being a mid morning and mid afternoon snack instead of milk feeds.
At 12 months I dropped the BT bottle (switched to a supper snack with a sippy of milk) and at 13 months dropped the WU bottle but kept a big milk drink at that time of day.

In New Zealand where I live, they recommend around 8 months you offer solids first

Does the advice also include introducing a snack too or just switching the solids and milk around, do you know?
I'm sure we could help you come up with a plan if switching to solids first is the route you'd prefer to take.

[creations]

I don't really have time to look further just now but I found this
http://www.health.qld.gov.au/ph/documents/saphs/hsil_introtosolids.pdf
which has a sample day for 8 months. Looks to me like the recommendation is solids with milk immediately after (so for breakfast, lunch and dinner) with the mid morning and mid afternoon E times being milk only.  It also gives a recommendation to begin snacks at 9 months, so I'm guessing these would be at the mid morning and mid afternoon times.
These recs seem to be from 2003 though (at a quick glance, didn't have time to look properly) so I'm not 100% sure these are the current guides.

[ZacsMumme]

Hey lovely, I'm in NZ.
I think it was around 9 months they recommended the switch from solids first and milk second. Tbh my boys were. Both refluxers and sensitive to food so I think they were a bit older before I did this. When I did our day was.
WU breakfast, milk feed 15/30 mins after.
Snack.
Short nap
Lunch
Bottle before...
Longer nap
Early dinner
Bottle
Bt
We dropped the first feed of the day around 10 mths.
Hth

[ladymugg]

Thanks to you all, this is very helpful and interesting.

From what I have gathered here, I don't need to do solids first but this might naturally happen over the next few weeks or months.  What I have gained from your advice is that maybe I need to be offering larger portions of solids (not that I limit her meals, but maybe having extra ready to go if she wants it will help switch the primary food source to solids before 12 months).

By the way, here is a link to the useless info we get given here in NZ.  Maybe I'm being a bit harsh - it's good in the sense that it gives suggested food ideas, but it has very little detail on the "how" other than "offer solids first" at their stage 3.
http://www.forbaby.co.nz/Stage-1/Baby-Nutrition-and-Health/Guide-to-Baby-Feeding

Can someone quickly point me to a suggested snack link on this forum?  This is probably the bit I need to up my game on.  I offer a piece of fruit or vege or cracker or something most afternoons (not as a rule) BLW style just so there's something for her to chew on/interesting taste/texture etc.  I spoon feed meals but I could probably do a bit more snack offering and working on getting her to feed herself meals.  The finger food ideas in the Solves Your Problems book are ones I will definitely be using as snacks and also before offering purees.

I'll have a scroll thru some other forum posts/topics to see what other people around the 8/9 month mark are doing for their EASY with regard to incorporating the feeds.  I think what I'm doing is fairly right but I'm a Textbook mama of a Textbook Baby so I just want to be sure I'm on the right track

Thanks once again.  Please keep posting questions and suggestions everyone who has replied to my topic has been great and I like to keep hearing different ideas

[creations]

There are lots of finger food ideas here
Finger Foods (6 months+)
but what you are offering for a snack is fine