Baby only eats solids with others?

SouthRNComfort

I posted this in breastfeeding, but this seems like the more appropriate board:

My issue is twofold: I exclusively breastfeed my 8 month old baby. Around 6.5 months we started a few bites of solids here and there. I now send her to daycare with a serving (about 1 oz) of fruits/veggies so she eats solids at least once a day there. Daycare reports that she eats well there and is scraping the bowl so they always want me to send more. She finishes all her bottles there too (about 13-15 oz total over 10 hours). I notice that when I offer solids to my baby in the evenings, she usually refuses so we just nurse together. I figure when nursing twice between 5-8 pm, she doesn't have any room for solids. This past weekend I noted that she didn't want anything to do with solids the two times I offered them each day.

1) Is it normal for a breastfed baby to refuse solids with mama but eat them willingly with other care providers? I hear she eats everything with grandma too. But with me, she barely eats a few bites, even of things she's liked in the past.

2) Could this have anything to do with my drop in supply?

I just noticed a drop in supply last week, but chalked it up to lack of sleep or the fact that we were apart 4 days in a row for work (usually we're apart for 3 in a row, so I pump then) . So over the weekend I ate oatmeal, my usual mother's milk tea, and slept a lot, and nursed all weekend. But today my daily pump was barely what she needs for daycare (12 oz). Is there an 8 month supply slump? I haven't started my periods again yet. Is it related to starting solids? I tell daycare to make sure she has a bottle first before giving her solids so she gets the bulk of her nutrition from milk, and she never just eats solids and refuses milk.

Thanks for any insight!

blu-eyedwife

1) At this age, you really want her to be getting breastmilk and not solids anyway, so the fact that she'd prefer to nurse versus eat solids is fine.  She's getting much more "full" from the liquid stuff which is providing her with what she needs to grow.

2) If you think about it, eating is a very social thing.  We grab a bite to eat with friends, back when you were dating you probably often went out to eat on a date, family meals, etc.  So the fact she eats more when others around her are eating isn't terribly surprising.  If you're up for it, we did Baby Led Weaning, which meant we never fed my son, we just gave him food when we were eating for him to play with/gnaw on.  That way he was eating "with us."

3) I don't think there's an 8 month drop in supply, but I do know that after 6 months supply stops being regulated by hormones and is completely dependent on supply and demand.  Maybe yours lasted a little longer?  At a certain point, I had to add a pumping session every day to make up what he ate at daycare, I can't remember exactly when that was.  And I added a pumping session on the weekend when I didn't normally pump.