EAT > Feeding Solid Food

9 mo old - solids vs milk?

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KatieAlexis:
Hi there,
My daughter is 9 months old, and now she is eating solids I'm finding her routine has gone out the window somewhat. I'm a bit confused about when to give milk and when to give food to optimise her calorie intake.
When she started weaning she was having regular 4hrly milk (4x 7oz bottles in day plus 1 at night) and food as follows:
730am wake and milk
9am breakfast
(Sleep)
1130am milk (this is the bottle I've now stopped)
13hrs lunch
(Sleep)
330pm milk
5pm tea
630pm milk
645pm in bed / asleep.
During night at some point when wakes - milk

Now she's eating a bit more at each meal, but it's hit and miss. She has a bowl of porridge and fruit for breakfast but lunch and dinner she sometimes eats and sometimes doesn't, depending what's on offer - i give her a wide variety of foods. People told me they were surprised she was still having her normal amount of milk and I needed to actively reduce it, so a couple of weeks ago I didn't give her the mid morning bottle and I found she went quite happily until lunch, in fact, she rarely asks for milk until she sees the bottle. The last week or so I've also noticed she doesn't drink more than a couple of oz of her first morning bottle (730am ish). I feel like I'm messing around with when she has her milk and trying different things and I'm not sure what's best to do. If I swop things around so she has breakfast first, I'm worried she'll get dehydrated (she rarely takes more than a sip of water). I'm also thinking that at some point she will sleep through the night and then might drink more milk in the early morning, or will be even more dehydrated if she has breakfast and no milk? (Incidentally, will she drop the night feed / other day feeds, or do I need to actively stop feeding)?
I've gotten myself a bit confused with how milk fits into her day now, any advice is greatly appreciated!
Katie

eva026:
A nice sentence I picked up from the lovely ladies on this forum “ food is for fun till they are one”. Milk is still supposed to be their main source of nutrition till they turn one, whatever they eat till then is just so they can learn new taste and textures. If you see she’s drastically reducing her milk intake, I’d offer milk first and then solids 1h later but I’m sure someone will be along soon to help you out with the timing.

Lolly:
I agree milk is still very important at this age, but it does start to gradually reduce to allow solids to be the main source of nutrients by around 12 months.

To be honest, the first thing I would do is to drop the night feed. At this age she doesn't need it, we had to activley stop my DD's nightfeed at about 8.5 months as it was having an impact on mornings. We did it by reducing the bottle gradually and just re-settling. I offered 1oz less for 3 nights, then another oz less and so on until there was only a couple of oz left in the bottle. Then I offered her a sip of water when she woke and after a couple of nights she stopped waking. She wasn't too happy for a couple of nights but we just settled her as best we could.

Some people do it by reducing the amount of formula powder added to the water, but they still have a bottle full of liquid. I think that reducing the amount given slowly allows them to learn to sleep without that full tummy.

Around 10 months is when most babies drop to 3 daytime bottles. The normal pattern is to have a wake up bottle, breakfast, mid morning snack (if needed), lunch and then a bottle just after lunch before the afternoon nap (but not feeding to sleep). They then have a small snack post nap if needed and evening meal. The third bottle is then the bedtime bottle.  The timings will depend on the times of your naps and wake up/ bedtime.

This is an age of constant feeding it seems but the 3 bottle routine generally works really well. Dairy in food counts towards her daily intake and adding in more protein keeps them fuller longer so snacks aren't always needed depending on appetite.

HTH!

Laura

creations:
I see you've already had great advice, just thought I'd drop by with mine too :)
I would drop the night feed as Laura said.
Then the day timings what I did with mine was to switch one milk to a solids snack with water (either mid morning or mid afternoon) leaving 3 milks.  Then in a couple of months drop the other (either mid morning or mid afternoon) milk by switching it to a snack with water.  All my timings stayed basically the same as when he had 4 daily milk feeds it's just that 2 were made into solid snacks.  Timings also are just what fits around naps but it's fine to go longer between milk/snacks when there are solids meals (with water) and naps between.

KatieAlexis:
Thank you so much for the great advice! I feel like it's much clearer now so thank you so much for taking time to help!! Was so sleep deprived I couldn't think clearly ;)

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