Drop a feed?

[KellyC]

Hi

Zander is 7 months old and eating 3 solid meals a day as well as having 4 breastfeeds and, at the moment, a short feed at night.  At the moment I'm gradually reducing the minutes he feeds for at night to try and stop him getting hungry and waking.

Very often at the moment he's refusing either his 11am feed or his 3pm feed and I'm wondering if I should drop one of them, probably the 11am one.  I realise this seems a bit silly when he's waking in the night hungry and that he'll start to be hungrier during the day when he drops that feed but I can't help thinking that having a 15 minute feed at 3pm will be getting more milk into him than a 10 minute feed at 11am and then nothing at 3pm.  Does that make sense?  Any advice?

Many Thanks
Kelly x

[LŠuren]

Kelly, I can't advise on the breastfeeding side of things, however it is normal for the 11am feed to go first.
You may find your routine looks more like;

7am wake and bf
8 / 8.30am breakfast
11.30 /12.00 lunch
2pm bf (or when he wakes from his nap)  **this one will depend on naps, ideally should be a touch earlier 
5pm dinner
6pm bath
6.30pm bf
7pm bed

You will find that when dropping to 3 breastfeeds you are feeding Zander frequently throughout the day (when he isn't sleeping), either milk, solids or snacks.

HTH's (sorry if you already knew all this)
lauren x

[KellyC]

Lol, that's the exact schedule I had in mind 

If I drop a feed should I introduce a snack instead?  Oh my, this is getting complicated!!

Kelly x

[LŠuren]

Not sure to be honest,

Looking at your 4 feed schedule (from Sept/Oct mums) his lunchtime isn't too much after you would have normally breastfed him, or you can maybe lunch at 11ish initially then gradually push it out to nearer 12 ish. I think it will be trial and error for a little while.

With solids I always give Calum sips of milk to wash his solids down with, just like we do as adults. You could maybe give water (Calum spits it back at me ) or a baby juice (not keen on them  ) - although you probably already do this.

It like the Krypton Factor for babies, thats why I am not dropping a bottle yet, even though he plays with 12 and 4.30pm milk

HTH

[KellyC]

The little blighter has changed his schedule again and has gone back to 2 long naps instead of the short am and long pm one.  I think I'm just going to see how his routine settles down as he's going through a bit of a transition at the moment.  I'm grateful for good naps whether they come in one short and one long or 2 medium ones!  I give Zander water with his meals (not keen on juices either) and he quite likes it - it always makes him giggle, must be the cold!  I'll have an experimentation day tomorrow and see how it goes!  Maybe offer an earlier lunch and then introduce a snack once we push it back out - have to work around those naps still though.

Kelly x

[LŠuren]

good luck, I will be asking you when the time comes. 

[daisymelan]

My lo is 8.5 months and still gets 4 full bfing a day and sometimes a night one.  He is not showing any interest in dropping any of his feeds.  I think I may follow this thread as well and see if maybe I should be cutting back a bit, but he seems happy.  Some days one feed is shorter than the others, but he hasn't out right dropped or shown signs of dropping any. 

I just keep thinking that he should be getting most his cals from milk for the first year.  When do little ones start dropping bottles or nursing sessions?  Is there an average somewhere that someone would like to share?

[teezee]

i was wondering the same thing too, to be honest.  my lo is almost 10 months and is still get 4 full bfs a day.  although yesterday she got three (just the way the day worked out) and she slept through the night just fine...although when it was time for her 'usual' bf she was whiney for a bit til she realized she was getting solids...i didn't give her the 4pm feeding but fed her before bed..

[KellyC]

Well today I dropped the feed!  Our routine was out all day due to a long night waking and a lie in this morning but normally it would be the 11am feed I'd dropped.  It went fine and he wasn't asking for food before he got it and actually ate for more minutes than he did yesterday so I'll see how he gets on tonight and also report back in a few days and let you know how we're getting on!

Thanks
Kelly x

[FreddieEden]

Hi Kelly,

We are facing lots of the same issues at the moment.  Just wanted to say I dropped the 11am feed today as well!  I had been thinking about it for a while and in the end it was just the way the day worked out.  DS took a long am nap and I went to church.  DH was supposed to bring him to church when he woke but as DS slept till 11 by the time they had got there, I thought I might as well bin the feed and go straight to lunch.  He was fine with it - ate 7 cubes of chicken casserole and a whole banana - though he still looked round the room for ages and sucked his thumb before getting down to it!  He took a really big feed at 2.40 when he woke from his second nap.  I'll let you know how he gets on, though he might wake up in the night for a feed as his bedtime feed wasn't so great (we also dropped the third nap and he was asleep on the breast by 6.15 so had to be woken up to have his teeth brushed and put in his grobag).  Daniel is very funny with his water as well.  He drinks it out of a doidy cup and laps it up like a dog, then stops to put his hand in the cup and splash the water around!

Freddie

[deenz]

My dd1 was on 4 bf's per day til around 10m (when I initiated dropping the 3pm feed and swopping it for a snack instead).  She had no night feeds from about 7.5m when I dropped the DF.  But she was not a great solids eater.  Here we are advised that babies need 4 milk feeds per day til around 9m.  I guess many babies have their 4th milk feed during the night though.

[KellyC]

Tell me about it Denise!  Like I say though, Zander did actually have more time on the breast today so it's likely that he's consumed more milk and not less.

Freddie, seems like I'm following you around doesn't it?!    7 cubes and a whole banana - that's quite a lunch    I had to laugh at the brushing teeth part of your routine, Zander still has none at all and I've been blaming teething for general grumpiness since he was 3 or 4 months old!  Let me know how you get on won't you?  Oh yes, Zander also has a doidy cup as well as various other sippy cups.  He's going through a phase of wanting to throw everything that he picks up though so I have to hold on very tight too 

Kelly x

[FreddieEden]

Hi Kelly,

How did you get on?  Daniel woke at 2am and I fed him.  He might have settled without but at the moment I am feeding him when he wakes unless he settles very quickly in the rocking chair (normally he is outraged at not being put on the breast) or it is before 10pm.  I'm not sure if it was related to dropping the feed yesterday as he has been very unsettled this morning.  I think the next lot of teeth might be due or he might be about to make his next big baby discovery.  But he did want his morning feed which he has often refused when he has eaten in the night before.  So, I think I'm going to stick with the four feeds until the unsettledness is out of the equation.  I want to get rid of the two daytime feeds before DS goes to nursery at 11 months so that he doesn't have too much change all at once.  My long term plan if he doesn't start dropping them voluntarily is to replace 11am  with a snack at nine months and to replace the afternoon feed with a cup of formula or cows milk at ten months.

Freddie

[KellyC]

Morning

It went quite well really.  He didn't wake until 5.15am so he's going a longer stretch and I gave him his very precise 7 minute bf and put him down again.  He shouted and whinged but wasn't distressed so I left him and 10 or 15 minutes later he was asleep again and DH had to wake him up at 8am!  I'm sure Zander could go without the feed too as he wasn't particularly hungry this morning although with persistence he took a 10 minute feed and had a fairly good breakfast.  I'm going to stick with this gradual weaning though and see where it gets us.  I hope Daniel's feeling more settled soon.  Your plan sounds good and would suit us too as Zander is going to nursery just after his first birthday!

Kelly x

[KellyC]

Hi guys

I just wanted to update you with our progress.  I started noting when Zander was feeding and for how long last Saturday, when he was on 4 feeds a day and 1 night feed.  I decided to try 2 things at the same time, gradual night weaning and dropping his 11am feed and this is how it panned out;

Day 1 - 4 x day feeds and 1 x feed at 2am.  Total feeding time 45 mins.
Day 2 - 3 x day feeds and 1 x feed at 4.30am.  Total feeding time 52 mins.
Day 3 - 3 x day feeds and 1 x feed at 5.15am.  Total feeding time 47 mins.
Day 4 - 3 x day feeds and no night feeds!  Total feeding time 51 mins.
Day 5 - 3 x day feeds and no night feeds.  Total feeding time 62 mins.

I stopped making notes then and we've had a further 3 nights with no feeds.  I suppose what was happening is the same as when you switch from a 3 to a 4 hour EASY.  He wasn't really hungry at both 11am and 3pm but I was feeding him anyway so he was just snacking.  I really noticed an improvement in his feeds as soon as I dropped the fourth feed and of course this made the gradual weaning plan redundant.  His feeds have settled down to 8-10 minutes again now so I guess my body has adapted to our new feeding routine.

Zander's naps are a bit everywhere at the moment but I usually try to get his second bf in before his second nap so he doesn't wake early from hunger so it usually happens some time between 1.30pm and 2.30pm.

Kelly x