Hello all!
It seems there are a lot of posts about feeding concerns/issues/schedules for 7 month olds. I'm glad to see i'm not alone! My little guy will be 7 months tomorrow. He has been eating solids for a little over a month now and LOVES it. He gets so excited at meal time and will eat pretty much as much as I could offer. This is great, but for the past 2 months or so (started before we introduced solids), he is not interested in BF during the day anymore. I thought (hoped) it was just a phase. He is quite a spirited little guy and Tracey says at around this age because they are so interested in exploring the new world around them BF might take a hit. But it's been 2 months and he isn't getting back to it. An average day looks something like this...
7:00 - wake, BF (10-15 minutes)
8:00 - breakfast: cereal (mixed with BM) & fruit
9:00-10:15 - nap
11:00ish - BF (5 minutes if i'm lucky)
12:00ish - lunch: frust & veg
12:30/1:00-2:30 - nap
3:00 - BF (5 minutes if i'm lucky)
4:30 - dinner: some combo of veg, protein & fruit (lately i've added a bit of cereal mixed with BM to get in some extra calories)
5:30/5:45 - bath, massage, story time
6:00 - 8oz bottle of BM or formula (he will sometimes BF after this as well)
6:30 - bed (we recently cut his cat nap so are working on getting this bedtime later)
He is usually up once during the night to feed, never consistent. He takes a full feed, usually 10-15min on each breast. I've tried to hold off from feeding him in hopes that he will eat better the next day (doctor recommended). When i'm successful, I haven't fount it made much of a difference since it's the 11:00 and 3:00 feeds that he isn't interested it. Other nights (like last night) I give in because he can't get back to sleep otherwise. I was up for 2.5hrs with him last night doing PU/PD to no avail because he was hungry.
Is he telling me that I should feed him fewer solids so that he is more hungry for BM?
Is he telling me we should merge the 2 daytime feeds into 1 (say 1:00) feed? Something like...
7:00 - wake, BF
8:00 - breakfast
9:00 - nap
12:00 - lunch
1:00 - BF
2:00 - nap
5:00 - dinner
6:00 - bottle/bed
I know I don't want to limit the amount of milk he is getting at this age, but would he actually get more milk by just doing 1 feed than he is right now doing 2? Has anyone tried this type of schedule with a 7mo? Thoughts?