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Weaning

Food & milk

14 replies

Kafri · 20/05/2013 15:55

Was advised (by consultant) to start early weaning with DS who is now 22w due to his reflux. I have an appointment with the dietician but this is mid june.

He has now got the hang of eating off a spoon and have been giving him pureed fruit or rusk and milk concoction in a morning and some pureed veg in the afternoon.

What am I best doing routine wise? I gave him his fruit this morning before his bottle but then he only drank 5oz of his milk and I know that his milk is still the most important part of his diet so i'm guessing I don't want him cutting down on his milk...

He has been waking in the early hours recently for a feed so, silly question, but do I count his 4.30am (this morning, for example) feed as 1 of his 5 feeds for today??? He then had his fruit and a feed at 8.30 and a feed at 1pm. He's just (3pm) had his veg and I will give him his feed when he wakes from his nap and then a final feed before he goes to bed this evening.

I seem to be winding myself up a bit about making sure I fit in his milk and his food and making sure he's getting enough milk etc.

Please can someone point me in the right direction with how they set their day?

I should add....

  1. I have to wean him dairy free
  2. He usually wakes for a feed once in the night but the time varies tremendously.
  3. He wakes in the morning at different times
  4. His naps vary a lot too - sometimes 20mins, others 2 hours.
  5. He was sleeping through up until 4/4.5 months when he started waking in the night.


Please give me gentle nudge in the right direction
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ExBrightonBell · 20/05/2013 16:54

The general advice is, AFAIK, to give milk feeds about 1 hr before food. That way they still take all their milk, but are not too full to try solids.

So when you both get up, give milk, and then 1 hr later do "breakfast". At 22 weeks you could stick with 2 "meals" a day for a while. So sometime later in the day, 1 hr or so after a usual milk feed you could offer solids again.

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Passmethecrisps · 20/05/2013 16:58

Hello.

We have just started weaning - 1 week in - so certainly no expert. However, we have been doing 2 offerings of food a day one hour after a bottle. Breakfast and lunch usually but today it will be dinner as we were out at lunchtime.

We are also dairy free with a reflux baby. I started a thread on recipes and ideas if you are interested.

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CheungFun · 20/05/2013 17:02

My DM advised that the food is 'in addition' to the milk, so carry on with the normal milk feeds and start introducing one 'meal' at a time, e.g. I started giving DS breakfast after he had finished his morning bottle.

Your LO will gradually decrease the amount of milk they drink as they increase the amount of solids, but let them take the lead in this and keep offering the normal milk feeds.

I think at the beginning of weaning, DS was roughly on the schedule below

6am bottle
7am breakfast
10am bottle
12pm lunch
2pm bottle
4pm tea
6pm bottle

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Kafri · 20/05/2013 19:53

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. Tomorrow, i'm going to give it a go an hour after a bottle and see how we go.

Cheung i'm going to give something like your routine a go but it obviously depends on what time he wants to get up etc.

Passme DS is on Aptamil Pepti 1 Milk and I spoke to the careline earlier and a lovely lady is sending me a cookbook of dairy free recipes so it might be worth you giving them a call if you'd like one?? you don't have to be using Aptamil to call them. What foods have you started with? I was unsure what I could use for 'breakfast' as all the baby cereals have milk powder in them which is why consultant suggested the rusk mixture and I alternate with fruit.

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Passmethecrisps · 20/05/2013 20:58

Hi kafri,

Good idea re the cookbook. Nutramigen do one as well so I have been trying to get my head into that mode. I had thought about using rice milk or similar for some things so that we can all eat them - I don't know about Aptimel but nutramigen tastes awful!

We started with just purée which she is not massively keen on. She likes to feed herself so can be persuaded to chew on the spoon which gets some into her. I have given her dry toast fingers or toast spread with purée. Watch what bread you use as lots of breads contain milk. We use the bakery bread from sainsbury's. New York bagels are dairy free.

Cereal wise we have just started with organix cereal. You just mix the formula milk. Ella's kitchen porridge is dairy free but says it may contain milk traces. It sounds like that would be ok with your wee one.

Bread, bagels and porridge will have to wait a couple of weeks for you but we have found them pretty useful for a wee girl who I suspect will be a bit fussy about her food.

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Passmethecrisps · 20/05/2013 21:01

Our day also looks loosely like cheung's. DD gets up an hour later though so everything is along a bit. We are being pretty flexible at the moment but I try to offer her food twice a day. She gets a combination of finger food and purée.

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Kafri · 20/05/2013 21:13

there is just no pattern to when he wakes and jow long he naps etc. he started waking in the night again a fee weeks back but even that is at different times each night.
hes ALWAYS tired. still only wanting to be up for hour and half before getting tired and whiny. I thought he would be extending that by now....

his Aptamil used to turn my stomach but its not all that bad now I've got used to it. smells like horlicks which I cant stand anyway. hes been on it from being tiny so never known any different.

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Passmethecrisps · 20/05/2013 21:45

I think nutramigen has a malty smell as well! Noone else can ever smell it - usually recoiling in horror. DD has been on it since 4 weeks so like you I find it hard to remember anything else.

My DD has only just started stretching her wake times beyond 90 minutes. We can now get 2 hours but not without some whinging. She is now working towards a 3 hour cycle of 2 hours wake, 1 hour asleep. This works much better. She is a baby of routine though - she always has been.

Do you feel inclined towards nudging towards a routine if possible? I know not everyone likes it. Personally I couldn't cope without one! I started logging all of DD's naps, feeds and so on and after a fortnight started seeing some small patterns that I could gently nudge. For example I noticed she usually had a bottle every 3 hours so I nudged it a few minutes here or there to kind of fit into a 7-7 routine. It is very adhoc but does kind of work for us. I am also a wee bit mean about naps. I will wake her if she looks like she is sleeping past 5pm for example.

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Kafri · 21/05/2013 04:44

he's on 3 hourly feeds but this is extended if he's napping at 'feed' time cos if he's only gone down later then i don't want to wake him he's a bloody whiny mess without sleep

im going to start logging exactly what he does each day like you say and see what it shows.

how old is DD? DS will be 22w on Thursday so he's still only little. its me more than anything, I think, fretting about getting everything in there that should be Grin

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Passmethecrisps · 21/05/2013 11:53

DD is 27 weeks so in baby life quite a bit older than your LO. They are still teeny so no rush. I totally hear you about trying to get everything right though!

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Kafri · 21/05/2013 21:07

christ on a bike what an awful day. he hasn't had a day this bad since he was about 12/13 weeks.
woke from naps but still tired and whiny. cried constantly all afternoon through to bedtime. dreading what tonight will bring.
can't see any signs of top teeth but gum possibly feels a bit bumpy??? didn't have much warning with bottom two - they just appeared at 16 weeks (possibility teething was at least partly responsible for his early weeks of screeching along with the reflux)

FC for a good night

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Passmethecrisps · 21/05/2013 21:18

How bizarre - DD was a total bundle of whinge today which is actually unlike her.

My betting is teeth. I bet you get teeth in the next few days. Not you, obviously. I imagine you have teeth.

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Passmethecrisps · 21/05/2013 21:19

Fingers crossed you get a good night.

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Kafri · 21/05/2013 21:38

lol - funnily enough as he's getting his teeth I'm bloody losing mine. one of the only things I struggled with through pregnancy was brushing my teeth prooerly and it appears i didn't manage a good enough job with one of my back ones - having to have it removed after having toothache for weeks. dentist tried replacing the filling but it's still bothering me so she's gonna remove it cos im a wimp and cant cope with toothache while trying to be jolly and bouncey around DS Sad

hopefully they'll come through quickly tho I'm not as optimistic as you. I can't see anything on his top gum and tge 'feeling bumpy' might be wishful thinking.

BTW, you can laugh if you like - ive set uo a table on the computer to log DS days so I can see at a glance if there is any pattern forming ocer the next few days/weeks. yup - im a geek Grin

good luck tonight

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