Inspired by Lallymom's post below, I was hoping to see whether you all changed your kids' eating schedules once they transitioned from formula/breastmilk to whole milk at around 1.
Right now, my daughter eats breakfast then gets an immediate follow-up bottle, gets lunch and dinner the same way, and gets a plain bottle for "snack" at mid-afternoon (no solids then). She is an excellent solids eater, and I don't think she's going to miss the bottles/formula much, so we're planning to do things pretty cold turkey.
My question is whether, once we make the switch, we should give her whole milk in a straw cup along with her meals/snacks or whether we need to make the "giving of milk" a whole separate event (as it is now). Right now, she uses a straw cup with water at meals. If we give her milk with her meals, do we just make a cup with water available other times?
We are thinking of moving her to a 3 meals and 2 snacks format (one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon, with meal times being at actual proper meal times). Does this seem right to you guys?
Re: New eating schedule for milk-drinkers?
This sounds like a great plan. I give DS a bedtime bottle just because he loves it so much, but otherwise, he just gets a cup of milk in the morning with breakfast and water the rest of the day (though he was still drinking about 16-18 oz of milk at 12 months). We feed him regular solid foods at meals until he stops eating and starts playing with it and a snack between each meal.
We did (and continue to do):
Breakfast with milk
Snack
Lunch with milk
Snack
Dinner with water
Milk before bed
Here is our schedule:
Breakfast with milk
Snack with water
Lunch with milk
Snack with water
Dinner with water
Small snack and water before bed
I cut milk later in the day because they had colds and I was worried it was making them even more phlegmy. It worked so I stopped giving it later in the day and at night.
FET: Success! Beta at 14dp5dt: 2427 TWINS!!
So my kid's been on 3 meals a day since 6 months, so I'm not sure how helpful this is.
At 11 months he moved from bottle to straw cup with breastmilk and daycare introduced an afternoon snack. At that time his schedule looked like:
This schedule continued until around 13 months when he dropped all but the first and last nursing session