Want to transition 5pm cluster feed to cereal/solids...

[twoblacklabs]

Jack is going to be 6 months old on Dec 28 and so far I have him eating cereal twice a day - around 8am after his morning nursing and then at around 12pm after his 11am nursing.  I currently cluster feed at 3, 5, and then bottle at 7 and he's sleeping through the night (no dream feed).  I want to replace that 5pm feeding with cereal, but how should I do it? 

Should I:

Replace nursing at 5 with cereal from the start?
Nurse as usual and then offer cereal?
Offer cereal at 4:30 and then nurse at 5 and just see what he takes?

I think with this last option I could eventually move the cereal to 5ish and cut out the nursing... probably the best way to do it gradually rather than just eliminate the feed entirely, right?  I just want to make sure doing this doesn't disrupt his sleep - causing him to be hungry in the night - or cause him to take less at his last bottle of the night (he is currently taking almost 10 ounces!).

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Sounds like you've got it all figured out.  :wink:

I never did the cluster feed at 5pm, so we basically went from 3pm bf to 7pm bf, when I added dinner it just slotted in at 5pm no problems.  But because you have a nursing there already, I like your idea of doing option 3 with the 4.30 cereal and 5pm bf, with the aim of the bf not being a big feed.  I would imagine within 3 days you could get rid of that nursing and then move dinner up to 5pm if you want.  You will need to play it by ear as to whether it affects the final bottle and consequently overnight.  You may hit a growth spurt sometime soon anyhow, so things could change because of that.

Good luck.