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QueSrah
member
Need help fitting solids our schedule
QueSrah
member
So we have halfheartedly started DD on solids. I'm in no huge hurry to push through all the foods so early, but I'm stuck on how to fit feeding her into our schedule. Our biggest problem is that we give her Prevacid in the evening after we all get home - usually around 6 or 6:15. After that, we're not supposed to feed her for 30 minutes. It's pretty hard at that time of day to distract her from her bottle, so we usually end up feeding her between 6:30 and 6:45 (often before the 30 minutes is up 
) Between that bottle and bedtime (7:30ish) there's not really time for her to get hungry enough to be interested in cereal. I'm hesitant to get up even earlier in the morning in order to feed her - I'm usually up by 5:30 for the day and we wake DD up at 7 to get ready for daycare.
I know they can feed her at daycare, but I don't want them to be the one introducing new foods so I need to find a regular time in our schedule to feed her ourselves. The only thing I can figure out is to switch her Prevacid to the morning when she first wakes up at 7, give her her bottle at 6:15 in the evening instead of her medicine, and hope for a quick time of cereal by 7:15. I have no idea when we would have our dinner with that schedule, especially since I go to bed around 9 so don't want to have dinner at 8.
Any suggestions? Is my sleepy brain missing something obvious?
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Re: Need help fitting solids our schedule
Can you try the new foods on the weekends, and then have daycare feed them to her during the week? That's what we've been doing. DS doesn't really like taking solids from me but he'll take them from his DCP, so we try them here (so far just rice cereal and bananas) and they feed him there and it goes pretty well. They know when is a good time during the day to feed him that won't interfere with his usual milk schedule.
We do sometimes feed him some solids after we get home from daycare, but that's on the days when we get him home before 5:00. I'll feed him solids then and then nurse before he goes to bed at 6:30.
ETA: Your DD is only 4 months? I wouldn't worry about solids this early unless she seems really eager to try them. She should be fine without until closer to 6 months - that's when we started DS and he still isn't super interested.
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
baby blog/cooking blog
we introduced solids on weekends for a long time b/c I wanted to be the one to do it, so we did one a week for a long time. You need to do one a week in order to see an allergic reaction. You don't have to feed her solids every day if you don't want to or can't. Once DD was on solids, we gave them to her b/w her bottles/BFing, so if she had a bottle/nursed at 7am, 10am, 1pm, etc, she'd get baby food at 8:30am, 11:30am, 2:30pm, etc. - the solids will supplement the nursing/formula until she's 8mo old, not replace any bottles/BM.
can you try giving her solids when she gets home from DC? an hour and a half or so before her evening bottle.
I would intro new foods in the mornings on weekends so that if there is a reaction, you'll see it (you may miss it if you give her new food at night and she goes to sleep).
Intro a new food on a Sat and if she seems OK by Sun night, have DC give it to her once a day. She'll still get her solids but you'll be the one introducing them.
ETA: We also did not do any solids until she was 6mo old
We only started solids because she's a hungry little kid (30+ oz. of milk and formula/day) and the dr. said she's ok to start. I know food won't replace milk in her diet for a while, but for as slow as we've been going with introducing even rice cereal, we're not going to be far into this process by 6 months anyway.
I guess it's time to talk to the DCP about having her feed DD some cereal now that we know she's not having any problems with it.
Could DCP give her the Prevacid? Then you could do solids when you get home and then a bottle/nurse before bed.
We pretty much plop C into his high chair as soon as he gets in the door (6ish) to feed him and then I nurse him before bed at around 7. Luckily, I get home earlier and can throw a quick meal together for DH and myself so we can all sit down together when they get home. The family meal time thing is something I wanted to start early.
Family meal time is important to me in theory...I just don't know how to make it work given our work schedules and DD's bedtime. (We should probably put her to bed sooner as it is, but can't get everything done in time to make that happen.) If only I could get home at 5 in order to cook dinner, I could totally make our evening work
I'm hesitant to ask the DCP to give her Prevacid. It's sort of complicated (dissolve a tablet in a syringe with water but only give half of the liquid and throw the other half away), and I don't want to risk someone being distracted by other kids or parents coming and going and give her too much. We originally chose to give her the meds at night so she'd sleep better, but her reflux is not quite so bad anymore so there's less need to give it to her at night then in the morning. (At least I don't *think* the reflux would keep her from sleeping well... Do I really want to test that?)
My DD was on Prevacid forever (the compound, not tablets) and we had to give it to her twice a day. We didn't start solids till 6 months - in part because I really wanted to wait and in part on advice from her GI (but she was also MSPI, so that was part of it too). We started all new foods on Sat - sometime after her first and second feeding (just depended on when she woke up) and if the first two days went well, I'd send it to DC that week (we only did one new food a week). They would give it to her at some point during the day (usually around 'lunch' time). As she got older we started ignoring the 30 minute rule because it was just too hard to not feed her
I would switch to the morning if you can - sounds like it will make it easier for you and less stressful.
As for family meal time - even at 19 months it's hard to have family meal time. DD goes down at 7, but needs to eat by 6 (othewise she melts down). There's no way for me to make dinner for all of us by then so she has dinner, my DH comes home and puts her to bed and he and I try to eat before 8. It stinks because I go to bed by 9:30, but it's just the way it works out right now. I would love to have family dinner, but I figure when she's a little older we'll get there - of course we have #2 on the way so it's going to be a while
I'm probably not much help, but we feed DD solids at night. She gets her last bottle from the nanny around 4:00, so we feed her at about 7:30 (I know, very late). She goes down between 8:30 and 9:00, usually (also very late!). And I eat after that. Totally not ideal, but I'm used to eating late, since DH and I have historically been unprepared for dinner, even before DD.
We want to ultimately do a family dinner also, but are not focusing on doing that just yet, particularly since DD needs so much attention while she eats.
You have some great advice on solids, when we first started DD we had a hard time fitting it in (no Prevacid) and sometimes it happened and sometimes it didn't. As we got more accustomed it got easier.
As to family meal time, here' what we do. On the weekend I try to make parts of the meals for the week. During the early part of the week, I try to have it so that I only need to reheat the entree and make the sides. Often I prep the following nights dinner before going to bed. This involves washing the salad and veggies, getting everything cut and chopped so when I get home, I can quickly throw things together. Normally I am home by 6, nurse, dinner by 6:45, DD to bed between 7:30/8. After she goes to bed, I clean up the kitchen and get ready for the next night. Typically I am done by 8:30 and then I get to relax.
I've taken to having freezer components to meals too. When I buy ground beef, I'll cook up a big batch with onions and garlic and then freeze so I can make quick tacos, ziti or meat sauce. With chicken I put breasts in the slow cooker and shred. The meat is then frozen and I use it for tons of different recipes.
We also make a lot of quick cooking entrees like fish, thin cut chicken breast, pork chops, eggs, bean/grain dishes.
Good luck, it gets easier as time goes on.