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Q re weaning and bf
Im planning on weaning my lo onto solids this weekend and have a couple of questions for those of you who have weaned their lo whilst bf.
If you have fed on demand, do you have flexible or set times when you lo eats food?
As your lo drinks less milk because they are eating solids, was engorged bbs a problem for you at any point?
When did you fit in milk feeds around his food?
When adding milk to food - did you use breast milk or formula?
Any more information/tips on weaning and bf, would be gratefully received.
Thanks for your help
Susan
If you have fed on demand, do you have flexible or set times when you lo eats food?
As your lo drinks less milk because they are eating solids, was engorged bbs a problem for you at any point?
When did you fit in milk feeds around his food?
When adding milk to food - did you use breast milk or formula?
Any more information/tips on weaning and bf, would be gratefully received.
Thanks for your help
Susan
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Replies
i'll tell you what i did, but it may not be "right"!!
i started giving ruby solids in the afternoon, about 3 or 4pm, but carried on bf on demand. after a week i introduced lunch then pushed back the the other meal to 5pm ish. i made the times flexible depending on when ruby had a bf. You are supposed to give solids at diff times when you're bf cos the nutrients in the bm are not absorbed properly if they have it at same time as solids. aim to leave at least 20 mins between bf and solids.
after another 2 weeks ish i introduced lunch. i would bf around 7am, then leave an hur til brekkie, then bf in demand til lunch around 12. bf in the afternoon prob 1 or 2 feeds then tea, then in the first few weeks another 2 feeds before bed.
for about 4 weeks or more, ruby didnt eat much at all and still bf 7-8 times a day. only now at 7 months has she got the hang of eating and she has 3 good meals a day with pud. so now she has dropped lots of feeds i just feed her when she wakes eg7am, brekkie about an hour later, bf at 10:30ish, lunch 12ish, bf 3pm ish, tea 5pm, bf for bed 7:30pm.
regarding milk, i stockpiled bm in freezer which i used for baby rice for about first 3 weeks til i ran out. then now i use formula for weetabix and readybrek. you can express fresh milk if you want, but i dont have any spare cos Ruby drinks it all!
the only time i was engorged has been overnight when she sleeps through but apart from that i never noticed any in the day.
good luck with weaning!
naomi
I have been weaning my lo for a few weeks cause he has never slept through and it got to the point when he was up 5 times a night. Hes now 24 weeks. When I started waening him I also started a routine. I was finding it so hard with him demand feeding cause he was so unpredictable. Now he wakes any time between 6:30 and 8am and I give him a full bf then. I then give breakfast at 9am (normally fruit) and depending on when he woke a bf. He then quite happily goes till 12 when I feed him lunch and a bf. I give him one side at 3pm and then tea at 6pm with bf. His final feed is at 8pm as hes going to bed.
My boobs dont get sore during the day but when he started to sleep through they were bursting in the morning but have settled down now.
I normally express a couple of oz a couple of hours after he goes to bed. I then use this in his food and also give him some in a doidy cup. He wont take a bottle so Im trying to encourage milk feeds from a cup. He takes a oz but thats it at the moment.
Good luck with the weaning
Emma x
how long after starting solids did your lo start sleeping thro and how many meals was he on at the time?
do find he will take a lot of breakfast in the morning at 9am when he has had a full milkfeed?
He would take more at breakfast if I gave him it but I dont want to over feed him. He normally has about 1oz of fruit and some porridge or cereal mixed in with it. He has about the same for lunch and tea. I have recently started to increase his food a little and only offer one side at tea but cause he is only 24 weeks I need to make sure he gets enough milk. I find that my lo takes more fruit than veg. I have annabel Karmels book and it has some really good tips and food suggestions in it. I found it really hard to know how much food to give my lo cause he never refuses a bf so I dont want to over fill him.
I started giving Lily one meal a day at dinner time (about 5pm), then the next month added lunch at 12pm, then the next month added brekkie at 7am. I just continued bf on demand as and when. So: set times for meals in the hope that some sort of routine would start to emerge (it did), bf whenever she wanted it.
Personally I never had a prob with engorged boobs because I introduced the meals so gradually.
I could never get much when I expressed so I used formula when adding milk to food.
Re when she started sleeping through: more-or-less bang on 6 months, once she was on 3 meals a day.
HTH.
As for getting engorged when they drop feeds, hopefully it'll be fairly gradual so shouldn't be too much of a problem (even dropping one feed every couple of days shouldn't be too uncomfortable).
I used breast milk to mix with baby rice etc, when I expressed I'd split some into 1oz portions to freeze it - used loads of storage bags but saved me throwing milk away, which is soul-destroying! Once he was 6 months though I used cows milk in food. I did use formula for a few days before I started him on a bottle of formula to help get him used to it - but it didn't work!
At first it will feel like you're feeding all the time, trying to fit in milk and solids it seems to be every couple of hours, but that doesn't last for long!
By the way, I think you've done brilliantly to still be breastfeeding as you're coming up to weaning, I remeber you've had quite a few problems with it, so well done you!
Anyway we had a sort of bf pattern but sorted lunch out first with rice then fruit and veg etc progressing to giving some tea then breaky. There were bf inbetween but like sunflower he dropped to 3 feeds a day fairly quick and we only do morning and bedtime now as he finally takes a whopping 8oz bottle in the afternoon in preparation of me going back to work, and quite frankly i wondered where all my energy had gone and has now returned dropping what obviously was a huge feed. XXX Might carry on bf for a time being as its only 2 x day. Depends as teeth haven't appeared yet and he is 7mth next week
My HV this week commented that she thought bf babies were a bit harder to wean because they like their mothers milk too much.
Do any of you think it is harder to wean bf babies onto solids?