8 1/2 mon old big eater..how to lessen milk feeds as he gets older?

[adkillip]

My L.O. loves to eat, but he is very active so remains on the lower percentile for weight. I'm not sure how to start getting him ready for less milk feeds?
His current eating schedule:
W: 5:30-6 BF (10min)
E: 8:30 (7.5 oz bottle at daycare, 4 oz jar oatmeal)
E: 11:30 (7.5 oz bottle, 1-2 4oz. jars baby food)
E: 3:00 (7.5 oz bottle, sometimes snacks)
E: 5:30 BF (10 min)
E: 6:30 (1 4oz jar baby food, some finger food from mom's plate)
E: 7:30 BF (15 min)
NF: 11:30 (10 min)
NF: 2:30 (10 min)

Any advice or suggestion of routine tweaks?

[creations]

Often LOs will let you know they are ready for less milk or fewer feeds (which may be bigger feeds but fewer of them in the day) by taking less at one or more of the milk feeds. This may not happen for another couple of months yet and by that time the solids intake may be increasing.
Is the 5.30/6am milk feed a night wake or the morning WU milk?

When it comes time to reduce milk feeds you might look first at one or more of the night feeds rather than the day feeds. That would be my suggestion, to move most/all calories to the day hours.

The other things you might do is separate milk and solids feeds. Giving solids about an hour after milk means LO has built enough appetite to show more interest in the solids meal.  I don't know if this would be possible or suitable for your day care centre?  What do you think?

[adkillip]

Thank you for the reply!
The 5:30/6am in a WU feed. He wakes at this time even on weekends.
I do try to separate solids on weekends, Daycare this isn't possible. Even without the separation he still eats more at Daycare than at home and eats more solids than the other kids his age!
I've been really watching his NF to see if I can start cutting away a minute at a time on the early one.
I don't want to push too much, since we finally got him only waking for 2 feeds instead of multiple NW (hope this continues).

I was just concerned by how much he was eating compared to his peers. But I guess I should just continue to let him set the pace?
He did recently up his bottles at Daycare from 6.5 oz to 7.5 oz, so maybe he will be ready to drop a NF soon.

[creations]

Sounds like you're following LOs lead on the quantity which is great.  I really wouldn't worry about him eating more than his peers as solids varies quite a lot at this age with some LOs have a great interest and others not so much just yet.  The important points really are that the milk intake doesn't drop dramatically and that he is offered healthy solids at predictable times - which is all fine

Sounds like you've done great with reducing the NWs too