daily feeding schedule
Hi all! I'm wondering if you all can provide me with your daily feeding schedule (solids and bottles/nursing), for your 9-10 month olds?
I have a relatively conservative doctor in that she wants us to wait until 10 months to begin feeding table foods.. so, right now, we give our DS 28-31 ounces of formula a day (5 bottles). For baby food, he has some oatmeal and half a jar of fruit for breakfast, oatmeal and half a jar of veggie or veggie/meat mixture for lunch, and half a jar-1 full jar of a veggie/meat mixture for dinner.
I read in What to expect, that babies at nine months dont need any more than 24 ounces of formula max a day, when eating solids (though it seemed to assume that by 9 months theyd be having table food). Should I give him less formula so that he'll have more solids?
Also- for those serving table food - what do your babies eat in a day (in terms of types of foods and amount)? I want to start introducing some, even if our ped said to not until 10 months.. so far he's tried unsalted saltine crackers, which he did pretty well with, and cheerios, which he couldnt get to his mouth all too well! I bought sweet potatoes, which I figure I can heat in the microwave unti9l mushy (he loves sweet potatoes as baby food)..
Re: daily feeding schedule
Follow your baby's cues. I think you'll find the 'sweet spot' somewhere between your doc's and your book's recommendations.
24 oz may not be enough formula. I wouldn't try to aim for that number. I believe 50 oz or more is the amount of formula you don't want to exceed.
I've found DD won't eat if she's hungry (weird but another mom posted that her LO wouldn't eat solids if hungry or tired, so I started nursing first then feeding she actually was willing to eat more solids)
I'm nowhere near even replacing a single feeding with the calories from solids. And my pied said that's ok. Even at a year, most of her calories will come from cow's milk.
She said the important thing was to try a variety of foods and textures. And that even if I found she LOVED pears not to just offer pears to try to fill her up (for example)
We do a mixture of table foods (cut up very small) and purees. She's slowly starting to prefer table foods but we still offer both at each meal.
I would start the transition by making his food. For example if you make carrots for dinner you can mash them up for him or even puree them. When I make chicken breasts I put DD's in the food processer with a little olive oil, I tried small pieces and she gagged so she is not ready yet.
I have always made DD?s food and my pedi said not to worry about table foods per say because by making her food she is eating table foods. I mash and blend her food as needed. As far as finger foods she eats scrambled eggs, whole wheat waffles (I break them into tiny pieces), shredded cheese, bread, soft veggies such as cubed sweet potatoes and carrots. Like the PP I do a mix of table style food and puree, but most of her food does have texture. I still give her quite a bit by spoon. She is small and I need for her to take in calories rather than throw her food on the floor. Below is an example of what she has eaten in a given day
Wake at 7:30 and nurse
9:30: 2 earth?s best mini waffles(4 are hooked together and she ate two of the four) and a mango puree I made
11:30: nurse
1:00 pm: homemade whole wheat mac and cheese ( I put it in the food processer to chop the macaroni up to small pieces) I did feed her this with a spoon, Yogurt with sweet potato puree mixed in and apple sauce
4:15: nurse or bottle
5:30: a mid-size Swedish meat ball (chopped in small pieces so she could feed herself) and a veggie puree
7:15 nurse
We don't live and die by a schedule but this is roughly what we do.
8:15 - Wake up
8:45 - Stage 2 fruit mixed with 2 tablespoons oatmeal and 1oz formula (it makes like a cream of wheat... he loves it). We also give him Cheerios afterward and sometimes whatever we are eating, like a muffin.
11:00 - 7oz bottle (we make an 8oz bottle but we put 1oz of it in his breakfast)
1:00 - Stage 2 veggie and some puffs, plus like 2 oz of water in a sippy cup. If we're eating at the same time we give him some of our lunch too.
3:30 - 8oz bottle
6:00 - Stage 2 meat, puffs, and 2oz juice. Lately, we give him whatever we are eating too, so if he eats a lot of our food we don't give him the puffs and he sometimes won't eat all of the baby food.
7:30 - 8oz bottle and he goes right to sleep
Liam is on a pretty loose feeding schedule. He began refusing purees a little over a month ago so we made the decision to move on over to table food much earlier than we had originally planned.
Anyway, a typical day goes something like this...
Liam wakes up and has a bottle. Then he plays until he gets tired and takes about a 45 minute nap. When he wakes up then he gets breakfast which is usually yogurt with cereal mixed in (the only food we are still "allowed" to spoon feed him, haha, but he has to "help").
Then he plays until his next bottle. Takes a nap, and has lunch when he wakes up. Lunch varies. He likes grilled cheese, pasta, whole grain waffles, and we give him chunks of fruit to go along with it. Sometimes it's leftovers from dinner (today he had meatloaf and peas).
Then he plays for a bit, has a bottle, and naps again. He usually has a snack at this point, usually cheerios or puffs and then he plays until dinner where he eats whatever we are eating as long as it's baby friendly. Then he has a bottle, bath, pajamas, and bed.
Times vary because we are "on demand" as far as bottles and naps go (and so is daycare). He still naps a lot, normally three naps a day, so we have to work around that as well. We have figured out that he prefers a BLW approach where we give him bigger chunks of food that he can hold and bite off of himself. You could try letting your LO gnaw on a chunk of banana to see how he handles it. It's kind of nervewracking at first because you are just sure they are going to choke but Liam never has!
DD's typical day looks like this:
6:30/7 AM - 7 oz bottle
9 AM - breakfast of 2 oz fruit and 1-2 oz cereal, plus finger foods, followed by a nap
12 AM - lunch of 2-3 oz veggie, plus finger foods
2:15ish PM - 7 oz bottle, followed by a nap
3:30ish PM - finger food snack, just a bit to hold her over until dinner
5:30/6 PM - dinner of 2-3 oz veggie or fruit, plus finger food. Lately I've been giving her a bowl of cereal mixed with applesauce and a spoon so she can "practice" using the spoon.
7 PM - 7 oz bottle
For finger foods she eats a lot of different things. Some ideas: peas (I squish them out of the skins for her), steamed veggies diced up small, sweet potato fries, pancakes, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, graham crackers, diced up fruits, waffles, toast, cheerios, diced pasta, cheese (shredded or diced up small), tiny bits of chicken/turkey.... really if what we're eating can be cut up small enough or is soft enough, she eats it
I do make DD's food, so her purees now are pretty chunky/thick, some of them (like peas) she can even feed herself with her fingers sometimes.
DD1 Feb 2010
DD2 Sept 2011
Every Dr has different opinions on this subject. My LO's have had two different pedi's (we lived in another state when DS was an infant.) and both of them told me the same things when it came to food and formula.
I was told to begin offering table food between 6 and 8 months and to phase out babyfood completely by about 9-10 months. DS was done with babyfood by exactly 9 months. Right now DD is eating a combo of purees and finger foods, but that is just because I bought a ton of jars awhile back and I'm finishing up what I have. By next week she will be completely off of babyfood and will be eating three meals and two snacks of regular food everyday. She eats whatever we eat that is soft enough for her to mash with her gums with the exception of peanut butter and shellfish because my pedi recommends waiting until age 2 for those foods.
As for formula, my 1st pedi told me at DS's 9 month well visit to cut him back to "no more than 24 oz a day". DD's pedi told me a few weeks ago when she went in for her flu shot and I mentioned that she has cut way back on her bottle drinking that 16 oz a day from that point on was sufficient because her decreasing how much formula she drinks means that her body is getting most of its nutrition from food.
Hi there. I wondered if you tried the book, Super Baby Food by Ruth yaron. it has a sample daily menu (feeding schedule) of suggested baby foods (I bet even your ped would approve as everything she suggests is organic and can be made at home) as well as easy recipes and how-to stuff. She also just put out a pretty slick app on starting solids that might help.
Good luck!