Author Topic: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?  (Read 13427 times)

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Offline *Ali*

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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #15 on: July 10, 2016, 10:58:13 am »
Oh, sorry, I thought your first post said solids were half an hour after BFs. Maybe you meant 1 slash (or) 2 hours and I misunderstood.

I personally would not consider a single food, especially low calorie food like fruit or veg, to be a full meal now. By full meal, I would mean a variety of foods at each sitting, probably including foods from at least 2 if not 3 food groups like protein and/or complex carbs with appropriate fat content plus veg and/or fruit. Like you would have for your own meal only a smaller portion. E.g. For breakfast I might offer an egg, 1/4 slice of toast and fruit. For lunch maybe some cheese, a few bits of pasta, tomatoes and cucumber. For dinner it would be meat or fish plus veggies and maybe a yogurt. Or if you are doing baby food from a jar /pouch for example you can get the meals like tuna pasta bake, chicken casserole and so on.  But I wouldn't be doing that at your DD's age though. I'd expect to reach that stage closer to 9-10 mo. Personally I did baby-led weaning so we did start offering solids three times a day quite quickly but it wasn't full meals for a long time as only tiny bits of the various foods we offered went in to start with.

Do you not offer any protein like meat or fish or eggs? (Or vegetarian equivalents of you are veggie). If not I would start to do that as it will help increase her calories as opposed to offering just fruit and veg for two of the meals. Cereals can also be hard on little tummies so you might want to consider offering those earlier in the day rather than at bedtime if you think that could be an issue. Or not at all. In many countries now they encourage iron-rich food like meat as one of the first foods as iron stores are dropping by 6mo.

One option to try to cut down on the NFs is to offer an extra BF in the day. Looking at your easy it would probably be best to do it as a top up after a solids meal. As I said in my PP she may just not be able to get enough milk in the those 4 daytime feeds to not need to make it up at night. You can either continue with the NFs (it's likely she does need at least one at this age if not 2 anyway) or try to shift those calories to the day.

Working on the independent sleep will also help.
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011


Offline N_Mom_S

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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #16 on: July 10, 2016, 12:10:07 pm »
Oh yes I saw it now, I meant slash but it looks like half an hour, my bad!

Thanks for the explanation about the meals, it really helped! I do put some meat in his veggies, I forgot to mention that.

OK I'll try an extra feed after one of the meals, we'll see how it goes! I had also thought about changing cereal for veggies at night, I'll try that too. We usually do veggies first because he doesn't like them as much, and we offer more throughout the day in case he didn't eat them in the morning.

Thanks!  ;)



Offline N_Mom_S

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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #17 on: July 13, 2016, 07:06:37 am »
Hello again!

I think it's working! Last night he didn't wake up until 2:20, and then 5:50. I'm offering only one breast each time and I also added the extra feed during the day. We've been working on his independent sleep so that may have helped, thanks for all your suggestions :)

I have a doubt now: if I want to eliminate only one of the feeds (to keep my supply), should I keep offering less in one feed but both breast in the other? Which one should be easier to eliminate, the first one or the second one? 



Offline N_Mom_S

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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #18 on: July 14, 2016, 10:54:24 am »
Last night was worse, he woke up at 00:30 and nothing else worked (not even water) so I had to feed him (1 breast), then 3:30 both breasts and 6:30 (one).
 Could it be that he's snacking again, after being used to eat more frequently during the day now?



Offline N_Mom_S

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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #19 on: July 15, 2016, 14:14:28 pm »
The same thing yesterday, I had to feed him three times: 00:30, 3:30, 7:15 (his WU time is around 8:30, I tried to make him go to sleep by feeding him but he didn't want to). The first waking of the night is horrible, he screams a lot  :'(



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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2016, 09:48:20 am »
More or less the same timing yesterday, but he didn't even finish one breast at each of the feeds (and consequently the 3rd feed came a bit earlier). I'm confused  ???



Offline *Ali*

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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #21 on: July 16, 2016, 11:56:56 am »
How's the independent sleep coming along? Is it a prop issue?
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011


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Re: Increase daytime feedings to reduce NFs?
« Reply #22 on: July 16, 2016, 17:28:36 pm »
His IS is going much better! He barely cries now, we just have to leave our hand on his back and he goes to sleep soon after that :)

At night he's always eaten when he's been hungry, so now I don't know if he's using me as a pacifier or if he's doing the gentle removal himself (I only got to do it for 2 days), but that sounds too good to be true. So instead of 2 good feeds at night now he's at 3 short ones, what could be the reason? Any ideas? Thanks a lot!