Dropping a feed?

[carp10192]

Hi
My dd is 8 months currently our schedule is:

6am Wake bf
7am Solids
9 am bf
9:30 - 11 down for nap #1
12 lunch
1 bf
2 -4 nap #2
5 bf
5:30 dinner
7 bed (sometimes bf)

My dd for the past two nights has not wanted the 7 pm feed.  The first night she woke up at 10:30 and I feed her...which Im not sure if I needed to...just thought since she didn't eat at 7 she wanted it.  Then the next night she slept straight through until 6.

At what point do you stop the bedtime feed and early morning feeds and just to breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Thanks,
Alicia

[Grace's Mom]

At what point do you stop the bedtime feed and early morning feeds and just to breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Not until they are at least 12 months of age.  Until 12 months bm or formula needs to be their main source of food/nutrients.  After 12 months of age, they still need 24-30oz of calcium (from milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.) but they then get on average of 3 main meals a day and 1-2 snacks. 

How much is your daughter eating at each feed? 
She may be getting too many calories at 5:30 which could be causing her to not be hungry enough at bed time, and that is a really important feed.

Does she get a lot of milk at her 9am feed?
It seems the 6/7/9am feeds are really close together.

Melissa

[hatshetsut]

I agree w/ Melissa. I I would drop the 9am and the 1pm feed before I would drop the early morning or night feeds. I think around 8-9 mo my DD dropped the 1pm feed and was just on 2 bottles a day.

[Grace's Mom]

Before 10 months we were still on 4 bottles.  Then she moved to two naps (finally  ) and dropped the 2nd bottle, then dropped the 3rd bottle by 11 months and then at 12 months dropped the 1st morning bottle and a few weeks after that (once we used up the last of the formula) the 4th and final bottle was gone (all replaced with milk sippys...we introduced milk around 11/11.5 months).  You will need to add some kind of fluids in where that bottle was....water sippy, etc.

[carp10192]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your replies.  Currently dd is drinking water from a sippy.  Which she does really well.  I tried replacing the lunch time feed with formula...but she wouldn't take it.  After a week of trying. I decided I would just continue bf and then try again at 11 months to cows milk (she has never had a bottle...tried but wouldn't do that either).

I took out the 9am feed today so far we are:

6 am woke and bf
7 breakfast (she had 1/2 cup yogurt and some cereal bar)
9 am nap
10:30 woke and bf

so I am planning the next feed to be 2:00 before her second nap.  We will see how that goes with her.  Maybe I will try moving back dinner to 5 then her last feed at 6ish before she goes down at 6:30/7ish...hopefully that will help her get her full feed.  As before it felt more like a cluster feed.  She did feed fully both times...but got frustrated at the last feed as my milk did not come down very fast. 

She is a little chunkster so I think she is doing well..I just wasn't sure when things start deviating from the 4 hr routine.  I was doing EAS....but since she is down to two naps its getting a little more difficult.

She generally doesn't eat too much at breakfast, lunch dinner.  Ill be doing good if she eats a jar of stage 2 food.  But typically its about 3/4 of a jar and then maybe some puffs or something.  I don't give her snacks between meals yet, I try and bf at least 1/2 to hr before a meal so figured that was plenty of food.  She takes full feeds (both sides) usually.

Thanks so much for your help
Alicia

[Grace's Mom]

Looks good!