When and how to reduce formula intake

[gnu]

We have been weaning our little girl for nearly three weeks now (she is five and a half months). We have been gradually increasing the amount of solids to 2/3 cubes/oz of rice and puree at lunch and tea whilst also cutting back a little on her 10.30pm formula feed with the aim of cutting this out as her solids intake increases. This slowly reduced her milk intake from 31oz per day before weaning to 27 or 28 oz.

This seemed a decent plan and all was well for a couple of weeks. However in the last 4 or 5 days she was getting very irritable and unsettled during the day, especially leading up to mealtimes. As a response we 'wound back'a few days by giving her a little more milk and a little less solids (restricted to rice and pear only, no sweet potato (eating of which coincided with her being unsettled) in case she was having trouble digesting that). She is now much much happier on 30oz formula per day. I'm surprised she was seemingly so affected by a slight reduction in her milk intake but she has been on the same amount for 3 months now and she is a big girl (nearly 20 lbs). Perhaps she has learnt to just about get by on this moderate intake and really feels even a slight reduction?

Anyway, I'm a little confused about how best to move forward. We will slowly and carefully vary and increase her solids intake and keep her formula at the same amounts unless she starts to refuse to finish her bottle (she never does this). Is this best? I know that she should be taking much less formula once solids are established but is it best to wait for her to cut her intake by herself?

Part of this is motivated by HV concern over her weight (98.5 percentile) who have suggested consistently that our response should be to cut her milk intake to slow her weight gain. Of course, they never seem to have a good idea of how much formula she should be on so perhaps don't realise that cutting from a moderate to low intake 30/31 oz might not be a good idea.

[liquidclocks]

DS's weight 'leapt' into the 95th percentile when we were weaning him - he levelled off again back to 85th which is where he'd been since birth after a bit. Where did your DD start out - I think HV's can get a little obsessive, your DD is the expert on whther she is hungry or not!

What sort of things are you feeding her? protein fills them u more than carbs (same as us really) so maybe it's time to introduce a new food group? - I have some info somewhere that I used as a 'changeover' guide - will go find it, need to refresh anyway with DS2 about to arrive!

[gnu]

Her weight gain has been pretty much the same as before weaning. She has been 97-99th percentile for three months now (but she's also high 80s for length).

We were giving her rising amounts of rice, pear, apple, courgette, carrot and sweet potato. Although she took these reasonably happily she was clearly missing something that the milk provided (fats?) and reacted badly to that being reduced. This might explain her apparent hunger even though her total calorie intake was increasing with weaning, and why she is happier now with a little more milk but lower overrall calories?

Perhaps in a little while, when we introduce proteins, this might give her something that allows her to cut back on the formula without reacting so badly. Is this possible?

[liquidclocks]

ok found it:

5-6 months - breakfast (8am) was 8oz milk and an oat based cereal with fruit puree. he'd have 4oz first, half of food portion, 2oz milk, bit more food, rest of milk then finish off foo if he wanted to.

lunch (11am)- 8oz offered again, same 'staggering' process but food would generally be pureed potato with veg.

Afternoon (2.30pm) milk- 8 oz offered and a breadstick to chew on afterwards.

Tea - (5pm) 8oz offered, baby rice and fruit puree.

Evening feed (7pm) 8 oz offered then straight to bed, he slept from 7.30-7.30(ish) at that age.

I think at this stage the solids were about equivalent to half a small baby jar (but little greedy guts soonstarted taking more!).

I wouldn't count the evening feed as part of hermilk allowance now as it's probably more to do with habit/comfort - move it forward by 5 mins each night over a week till you get to 10pm, then start reducing it a ounce per night to 3/4 oz's, then we just stopped waking him and luckily for us that was it. If it doesn't work like that for you then offer cool boiled water at 10 pm for a week then try again. (and make sure daytime sleep is down to 3 hrs or below)


This system may not work for you, I'm just telling you what worked for us - if it doesn't sound right then maybe someone will be along soon with different ideas! - there's plenty of books out there too on weaning. It's early days yet and you're both learning something new, try not to get anxious about it - it will just work out for you at some point! Good luck!

(PS- one piece of advice re babyfood - avoid stuff with 'maltodextrose' in as it's a filler and has no nutrional benefit but may affect how much she eats)

[gnu]

"I wouldn't count the evening feed as part of hermilk allowance now as it's probably more to do with habit/comfort - move it forward by 5 mins each night over a week till you get to 10pm, then start reducing it a ounce per night to 3/4 oz's, then we just stopped waking him and luckily for us that was it. If it doesn't work like that for you then offer cool boiled water at 10 pm for a week then try again. (and make sure daytime sleep is down to 3 hrs or below)"

This is what we were doing actually and I think this is what caused the problems. Given she was starting on aroud 31oz of milk it seems that she couldn't really accept much of a reduction from this. I suspect that she will drop this feed if we tried but not without us increasing her milk at other times of day. The increased solids just don't, for her, seem to compensate for the slight loss of milk - her mood change was really major!

[liquidclocks]

I suppose If I add up all the milk I was offering DS it was more than your DD is drinking now so perhaps he didn't feel it as much - I have to say though it wasn't unusual for him to have milk left over - 2/3 ozs.

You can start proteins at 6 months I think - cheese, meat, pulses etc. Also, eating solids is harder work for them than drinking milk so I think the staggering approach was good for making sure he would eat a reasonable amount of solids and not get totally full up on milk.

Weaning's a hard one, but if your DD isn't ready to drop the evening feed yet then give it another month and then try again - she'll be eating more food and a bigger variety by then anyway so may not feel so hungry.

Again, I'd take your HV's advice with a pinch of salt for now -the 98th percentile is there because there are babies that are that big, your DD is just one of them - it doesn't mean she's odd or overweight -especially if she's always been big for her age.

[sophiewd]

Our DD is now 7 months and is FF when we first started weaning we gave her a bottle 7am and then bottle 10ish before doing half bottle then some food and half bottle at lunch time, a smallbottle about 3 and then an eveniong feed half six before bed, she sleeps right through, eventuall she cut out the lunch feed as her solid food intake increasedand so we give her water instead, we also cut out the afternoon feed when she was ready and swapped for tea. And now she has whole milk in cereal she doesnt want her breakfast bottle. we offered her bottles until we were sure she didn't want to and it has taken just over two months to get to this stage but she dictated. She is on the 75th percentile and shot up when solids were introduced.