Six to Nine Months and Beyond: The Perils of Accidental Parenting
Talk about giant steps! Now your baby is about to enter the real world, at least when it comes to food. Well, almost. Even though some food con¬cerns at this stage are centered on her liquid intake—many of them prob¬lems that weren’t dealt with successfully at earlier stages—the spotlight is now on the Big People Food. No more living solely on a liquid diet. Now he’s going to learn how to eat mush and then little pieces and finally all the foods you eat.
I also suggest cutting out the dream feed at around seven months, as your baby starts to get solid food in him. If you continue to give it, you’re working against the introduction of solid food, because for every 25 ml/ounce of extra liquid your baby takes, he won’t he hungry for 25 gram/an ounce of solid food. However, as the box indicates, when you cut Out the dream feed, you have to add the same number of ml or grams or ounces to the day feed. If you don’t, your baby will wake up at night.
The other most common concerns at this stage are:
My baby still wakes up hungry at night.
I’m trying to get my baby on a bottle but she’s having non of it.
My baby uses a trainer cup but she won’t drink milk out of it, only water or juice.Like many problems that crop up after the six month mark., these are most likely the result of accidental parenting. The parents didn’t start as they meant to go On. Or, they just didn’t think it through.
Take the first one: When a baby is still waking up for food at six mouths or-heaven knows I’ve seen it as old as nineteen months it’s because parents have responded to earlier episodes of night-waking with a feed, even though the baby only took a few ml/ounces. As I noted earlier, when babies night--wake at different times, it’s usually hunger. By six months, I rarely see this, except during growth spurts or when it’s time to introduce solids. But when they wake up like clockwork, it’s usually about accidental parenting.
The second and third complaints are also due to accidental parenting. As you know, I suggest that parents introduce a bottle as early as two weeks. (
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=67858.0 – Breast to bottle the BW way)
It‘s the same with making the transition to a trainer cup. This is a common scenario: A mum will introduce her baby to this more grown-up form of drinking by giving him something other than milk. Often it’s juice, because she figures that he’ll he more willing to drink the sweet, strange-tasting liquid from a cup than boring old milk. Some use water, too. Because they’re worried about adding too much sugar to Baby’s diet (I agree). Well, babies are like Pavlov’s dogs. So after a few months of tasting that “other” liquid, when Mum tries to give him milk instead, he makes a face that means, “Hey, Mum, what gives? This food isn’t supposed to be in
here.” And he categorically refuses to drink it. (See
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=55022.0 – BW guide to using trainer cups)
BW solves all your problems p 123
